Come Back to Me
by sheriffandsteel
Summary: He has to leave her body behind when the walkers come. He has just turned away and closed his eyes when hers snap open.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Okay so like most people I can't handle what happened in the MSF so I wrote this. Please don't come at me telling me how unlikely it is for someone to survive a bullet to the head (it actually is possible) and just let me live in my fanfiction bubble in peace.

**Come Back to Me**

He keeps waiting to wake up, to snap out of this horrible nightmare. For of course it had to be a nightmare, after all of his searching for her this is how it ends?

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

He didn't even get to say hello.

The only thing keeping him grounded in the horrible reality that has become his life is the weight of the dead woman in his arms. Her sister's screams fill his ears but he does not truly hear them over the sound of his heart shattering as he falls to his knees, cradling Beth's body to his chest as he tunes out everything in the world but her.

But it doesn't matter that he doesn't hear Maggie's screams, the dead do.

He ignores the sound of metal in flesh as they try to hold the walkers off. But soon enough people are saying things to him, yelling at him, pulling at him. He doesn't respond, doesn't move. Suddenly Rick is there, trying to pull him to his feet.

"We have to go. Daryl there's to many of them." his voice is frantic but Daryl can still hear the pain in it, the tears. Daryl struggles to his feet, his hold on Beth slipping just slightly as he struggles to pull her body into his arms.

The dead are swarming at them as they rush to the firetruck, people begin to shoot down the closet ones as they approach. They are still yards from the truck when Daryl's foot catches on a broken piece of pavement. He goes down hard to his knees, just barely protecting Beth's head from slamming into the pavement. He can see the walkers coming closer but he doesn't bother to move away. Only one thought breaks through the haze of pain that is his mind, _let them come._

A hand is on his shoulder then, pulling him to his feet, shoving him forward. He loses his hold on Beth and he turns to go back for her but Rick is already pulling him into the truck. Daryl hears the roar of the engine and he starts to fight against Rick's arms, which he has now wrapped around him like a vice.

"There's to many Daryl. We have to go. We have to go." his voice holds all the pain that Daryl feels but still he struggles, staring at Beth's slumped body on the pavement, the back of her head wet with her blood.

The truck begins to pull away and one of Maggie's screams penetrate his brain, "I can't leave her again!" she makes to rush forward like he himself is trying but Glenn and Tara catch her and pull her back. She slips to the floor immediately, gut wrenching sobs spilling out of her. Daryl feels the fight in himself go out as he watches Beth's slumped form grow smaller, wishing she was facing the other way so he could get one last glimpse of her face.

The truck turns a corner and she disappears from sight as Daryl lets the numbness take over and consume him.

XxX

The first thing she learns is pain.

It surrounds her, consumes her, until there is nothing else. She is certain that everything she is must be made out of this agony that is ripping her head to pieces. Her eyes flicker open, only to immediately squeeze shut as the bright light assaults them. The smallest of whimpers tears itself from her throat at the pain.

Slowly, carefully, she eases them open the tiniest bit. That's better. It is still too bright but bearable. Funny black spots dance dizzingly in her left eye as she tries to see her surroundings, to find the cause of her agony.

She sees nothing but her hand, flaked with blood, on the pavement. She tries to move her fingers but nothing happens. A frown crosses her features before her eyes scan the horizon beyond the hand she knows is hers but can't seem control.

The second thing she learns is terror.

Approaching her are a group of terrifying people. No, not people. People did not walk around with gray skin stretched tight over emancipated skeletons, with burn wounds covering half their faces. These were not people they were...

_Walkers._

The part of her that seems to simply knows things whispers.

She does not know what the word means but she knows that the things approaching her, drawn by the scent of her blood, are dangerous. She still cannot move her fingers but she can move her arms. She pulls herself along the pavement, her vision going in and out as she tries to put distance between herself and the dead.

The third thing she learns is confusion.

She could not have made it more than two feet before the sound of gunshots filled the air. The sound made her ears ring and she cried out against the pain and the terror she felt at the noise. Yet still she crawled, knowing that to stop meant to die.

Hands were on her then and she cried out, waiting for the pain to come as the dead began to bite into her flesh.

Instead a voice reached her.

"Oh my god. She is alive." the whisper belonged to a woman, her voice was full of something akin to awe.

The pain in her head increased as the woman started yelling.

"Tell Edwards to get ready! Someone grab a stretcher."

She whimpered against the pain the noise brought and suddenly hands were cupping her face. She opened her eyes to meet those of a young woman with brown hair staring down at her.

"Its going to be okay Beth. You're going to be alright."

She blinked back the spots in her eyes as she stared up at the woman in confusion. Who was Beth? Was she Beth?

She felt no particular connection to the word but having a name did not seem to be the biggest of her concerns at the moment.. A wave of blackness approaches her and she rode it out as more hands closed around her ankles and shoulders.

The fourth thing she learns is hope.

She comes to briefly, flat on her back on some form of moving bed.

_Stretcher._ Her mind whispers as she blinks up at the flickering lights. Or perhaps it is simply her vision that is flickering on and off like this.

"She's alive." this voice is male and sounds almost reverent as a man with glasses looks down at her. Beth, she has decided she will call herself this with the others, blinks up at him and watches as his features seem to steady in a sudden flash of resolve.

"Put her under. If she wakes up at all during this its over."

Something is placed over Beth's mouth and a startled noise of fear comes out of her throat. The man is looking down at her again as he pulls rubber gloves onto his hands.

"Don't worry Beth. I'll save you."

He must see the fear in her eyes, or the doubts of his words, because his next words reach her just before she slips under whatever gas they have given her.

"I promise."

The fifth thing she learns is darkness.

XxX

Daryl insists on digging the grave himself.

No one objects, no one even points out that they don't have a body to bury. They just stand to the side and watch as Daryl keeps digging down into the earth, hoping that each shovelful will help ease his pain.

It doesn't.

Finally, he gives up on the idea that digging a grave will help him. He sticks the shovel into the dirt on the edge of the grave and pulls himself out of the knee deep hole. Daryl joins the circle of his family and stares down at the empty grave feeling that the hole inside him is that deep.

No one knows what to do, it feels strange to put the dirt back inside the hole with it empty. They need to put something inside of it. Something to represent Beth.

If Daryl could still feel anything he would have likely felt surprise when it is Eugene, Eugene the liar as he has learned from the faint whispers that managed to worm their way past his numbness, who steps forward first.

He pulls something from his pocket, a book of matches, and leans down to place it inside the grave.

The smallest spark of confusion and annoyance hits Daryl before Eugene shrugs and mumbles something which Daryl just barely catches. "She sounded like she had a bit of fire." before he walks away to stand by himself at the outer edge of the group.

It seemed everyone got the idea quickly and at a loss of anything else to do, one by one they stepped forward and placed something in the grave whispering what it meant. The whispers seemed to be more for Beth than the others but Daryl could not stop himself from hearing them, from clinging to them and the memory of her.

A pair of earrings. _She always saw the beauty in everything._

A cloth bandage. _Hurt is part of the package. But you were worth caring for._

A flower. _I would have loved to have met you._

A torn page from a book. _For everything. _

A necklace and a sob that can only get out three words. _I'm sorry Bethy. _

Memento after memento, word after word. Still it is not enough and yet Daryl knows that Beth would be moved beyond words at this memorial. Finally everyone is done and he is the only one left.

He does not know what he could place in that grave that would be worthy of representing all she meant to him. Part of him wants to just lie down inside of it himself and let the other pour the dirt over him.

Instead he walks forward slowly, his boots at the edge of the grave as he pulls the soiled red bandanna from his back pocket.

His knees are on the dirt now as he leans forward and spreads out the bandanna so it covers the other mementos as if its protecting them. Her voice rings in his ears like she is right beside him.

_It does matter._

Daryl doesn't know what he can say to tell her what she meant to him, what he sometimes thought they might be able to have the few times he let wild dreams take him over.

He rocks back on his heals and stares at the grave that looks so empty and yet so full as he finally speaks, unlike the others he does not bother to whisper as he tells her. "It was you. You changed my mind."

XxX

She enters a world where only two things exist: agony or nothing.

There are times when she comes to, only to be hit by a pain so intense she cries out. When this happens it does not usually take long for a new drug to be placed into her IV bag, numbing her to the world once again.

Time loses any sense of meaning as her body and brain wage war against her wound, determined to keep her alive.

In the brief periods where she regains consciousness that is not blinded by pain she catches a few snippets of conversation. Many are long words that make no sense to her and that she briefly wonders if are made up before she slips back into her haze of drugs, but a few things manage to stick out to her.

_"She was lucky."_

_"If it had been a mere inch downwards she'd be dead."_

_"The bullet missed the major parts of the brain although the exact damage it did will be unclear until she wakes up."_

The words 'she's lucky' seem to come up several times in the brief moments she can drag herself into reality. But she does not feel lucky, she feels like pain in human form.

XxX

They continue moving because the alternative is to sit still and wait for death to find them.

Daryl keeps his distance from the others, speaks only when necessary and often loses himself in hunting. Everything reminds him of Beth, even the weight of his crossbow in his hands reminds him of how he taught her to use it.

The little bit of sleep he manages to catch is fueled by nightmares of Beth being shot again and again. He wakes up screaming more than once, knows his sleep is full of mumbling and thrashing, yet no one mentions it.

No one says a word but Daryl can see the knowledge of it reflected in their eyes.

He's never said it aloud but they know, of course they know. It is why they do not pressure him, do not push him to talk. Do not offer him the platitudes they give Maggie about Beth being in a better place, being with their father and other loved ones.

They all know Daryl was in love with Beth, just as they know nothing they said would be able to change that or make it any better.

XxX

One day she wakes up and the pain is manageable.

The next day it is even more so.

Slowly, ever so slowly, they begin to wean her off the pain medicine and various other drugs.

The doctor, Edwards, comes in after she has been conscious a few days to sit and talk with her about her injuries. Most of the words are medical, the explanations to complex for her still healing brain to grasp. But Beth begins to understand very early on that she is smart and the general idea of what happened sticks with her.

_I was shot in the head. It was an accident. Edwards saved me._

_The bullet ripped through part of my frontal lobe. Its why I can't remember anything, not even remember being shot._

_The memory loss is the biggest side effect of_ _my injury._

_We do not know if my memories will ever return._

She still sees black spots in her left eye and while she can now move the fingers of her left hand slightly sensation has been slow to return to them. Everyday when Edwards comes in to check on her he pricks the ends of each of her fingers with a pin.

She feels nothing.

XxX

Noah tells them of the safe place he lived with his family in Virginia. At first the others are wary to attempt the long trek for a place that may have been destroyed in the year of his absence from it but at the word walls they are sold.

Daryl follows after them, not out of hope for the dream of safety but out of a loss for what else to do.

He hangs back from the group, unable to be near any of them for very long. Rick sometimes hangs back to walk beside him in silence. Neither of them say a word, for really what is there left to say?

XxX

She has been deemed well enough to start being useful.

She does small things at first, things that will not cause strain to her healing brain.

She folds clothes, washes dishes, sweeps. Nothing complex, nothing difficult, yet she often has to stop to rest. The cops avoid her and the other wards are weary.

Aside from her daily session with Edwards she spends her days alone without even memories to keep her company.

XxX

Daryl decides he has finally lost his mind.

Beth begins to come to him, but in more than just his nightmares.

He starts to see a blonde girl everywhere he goes, always in the corner of his eye, always just out of reach.

Sometimes he hears her laugh carried to him by the wind.

It has been weeks and he still wakes up sobbing her name.

XxX

Every day after he checks her vision(which has not improved) and the feeling in her fingers(she can feel the pressure of the pin now just not the pain) Edwards does memory tests on her.

Things have begun to come back to her, but they are merely facts not memories. She can remember when the Declaration of Independence was signed, she remembers that walkers only go down from head shots, she remembers the differential equation.

But she still doesn't remember who she is.

She still does not connect to this Beth they claim her to be.

XxX

He hadn't even noticed when they first crossed out of Georgia.

But now he is standing frozen at the state line between South and North Carolina and Daryl cannot get his feet to move.

His own angry words are reverberating in his head as he tries to unglue his feet from the asphalt.

_I ain't never been out of Georgia!_

It seems like so many other things that was no longer true.

The others are looking back at him now, tuned in to the fact that something is wrong. Daryl cannot tear his eyes away from the sign. He wishes Beth was here, but that is nothing new.

He is always wishing for Beth.

The tingling sound of her laughter reaches his ears and he manages to tear his eyes from the sign to see her where she stands a few feet away from him.

Daryl has yet to see more than a glimpse of her, no more than her ponytail as she darts away from him, yet here she stands whole and untouched.

Her feet are squarely planted and her hands are on her hips as she considers him. There is no stain of blood on her clothes or in her hair and her wide blue eyes regard him with a smile.

"You coming or what Dixon?" she asks sweetly before she steps backwards over the state line.

Daryl lurches forward just as she disappears from view.

XxX

She has learned something concrete about herself, the first thing that feels true to her since the accident.

She can sing.

She does not know many words or songs at first. In the beginning it just comes out as soft humming. Wordless tunes flowing from her lips as she folded strangers' clothes or washed their dishes. It takes time before words come to her and even then she often loses herself mid sentence.

It does not matter to her.

The words, the songs, become her memory. They take her over and calm her far more than any drug Edwards pumped into her system ever did. She becomes stronger with the songs and soon the wards can stand to be near her. Can put whatever accident caused her injury behind them as they teach her new songs, new words.

Her favorite duet partner is the old man who cleans the rest of the kitchen while she washes dishes.

One night he is singing a new song, or at least a new to her song, as she washes silverware.

His voice is rich, melodious, as she absorbs the tune and the words to sing later.

The song is haunting, the words sad. Beth looks down at the soapy spoon in her hand and tries to scrub a bit of congealed food of it.

"And all I've done for want of wit, a memory now I can't recall..."

The spoon slips out of her hand and falls silently back into the soapy water.

Beth does not notice because suddenly she is in a different room, holding a different spoon up to the beam of a small flashlight. The words_Washington DC_ engraved upon it shine up at her.

XxX

Ever since the state line Beth only comes to him when he is alone. So Daryl starts to be alone more.

Sometimes she says nothing, simply sits beside him and watches his hands as he cleans a kill or shapes an arrow. Sometimes they talk for hours, about nothing and everything.

He looses count of how many times he says sorry.

Michonne finds them one day while he is in mid word. Daryl looked over Beth's head and saw her standing there and watching them.

No, watching him.

It was becoming increasingly hard to remember that Beth wasn't really there.

It made no difference, Michonne had only looked at him sadly before turning on her heels and walking away.

XxX

She uses the cover of darkness to make her escape.

Honestly, she does not know if escape is the right word for it. The hospital keeps a guard but they do so to keep the dead out not the living in. Still no one ever tries to leave and Beth gets the feeling that they might try to stop her if she does.

So she tells no one of her plan. She begins to sneak food and knifes from the kitchen. The flimsy knifes from the cafeteria would likely be no match against the walkers but she can not stand the idea of going out there unarmed.

It takes her a week to gather enough supplies, the whole time the words Washington DC branded across her eyelids. She begins to have dreams of the city she does not know if she has ever been to. Her mind begins to procure more facts for her about the city she now knows was the country's capitol. Visions of monuments and a large white house fill her waking hours.

She uses the cover of darkness to flee from the white hospital walls, not knowing why she has to go to DC just knowing she has to follow the only memory she had.

XxX

The walls are still standing.

That is the first thing to break through the haze Daryl had lived in since that gun went off. The walls are still standing and the people behind are still alive.

There was a lot of crying as an older woman Daryl knew to be Noah's mother held him tight and sobbed. Nothing else of what was behind the walls left much of an impression on him as his mind was stuck on what had just happened on the outside.

The others had rushed through the fences the second the guards had recognized Noah and agreed to let the others in but Daryl had lingered, waiting.

She appeared silently behind him, the whisper of his name the only thing alerting him to her presence.

He turned quickly, his heart plummeting as he took in the look of immense sadness on her face.

"Beth." his hand was out as he stepped forward but she simply shook her head as she began to flicker before his eyes.

"I can't go in there with you."her voice was a whisper but it stung him like a knife as he watched her flickering form with terrified eyes.

"Don't leave me." Daryl pleaded as he teetered forward a step. His hands reached the place she had been, saying something as she faded from sight. Only the last word of her sentence came to him. _Faith._

XxX

It is on the road that she learns the second thing about herself to take to be true.

She knows how to drive.

She has to check several cars before she finds one that has the keys inside and actually works. At first she had merely pulled on the seat belt and sat staring at the controls before the part of her brain that just knew things woke up and reminded her of what to do.

So she drove.

She drove and she drove and she drove.

She had taken a map from a different car, one she couldn't drive, that she had found back in Atlanta. The route to DC was carefully mapped out before her and she followed it to the exact letter.

Every car she passed she stopped to attempt to siphon gas off of. This was another fact that had returned to her as she drove. The more time she spent in the car on the endless road the more things began to come back to her.

But they were still only about the world and not about her.

XxX

Daryl is unreachable for days.

He does not eat or sleep or really even move.

He has lost her, again.

Now Beth would truly be gone forever.

Everyone tries to get through to him, now coming up with the things he has been dreading to hear.

_Beth wouldn't want this._

_You need to be strong for her._

_Beth would want you to keep living._

In the end it Abraham who breaks through the haze.

"You just gonna give up then?" he words were angry but there was something else behind them, something that told Daryl the man before him had been in this place before. The thought did not comfort him.

"You gonna put this on Beth? You gonna make her know you gave up because of her?"

Daryl shrugged, feeling as though a weight was resting heavily on his shoulders as he spoke for the first time since he had entered the walls of the safe zone. "It don't matter. She's dead."

The words echoed in his head, again and again.

_she'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdeadshe'sdead_

Abraham let out a huff of air so strong his mustache hairs billowed. He stared down at Daryl with a look he could not place: remorse, guilt, understanding. Maybe all, maybe none. Whatever it was he was still glaring at Daryl when he proclaimed words Daryl knew all to well.

"It does matter."

XxX

She nearly hits him at first.

She had switched cars earlier that morning and was heading down another endless stretch of road when something stumbled out onto the street. She nearly missed it at first because it was on her bad side but eventually she saw the figure through the spots that clouded her vision. This was not the first time this had happened and Beth readied herself in case the walker choose to step in front of the car as many often did.

Instead, she was shocked when the man before her rose his hand to his face and pulled the sunglasses off his eyes as he stared at the car bearing down at him in wonder.

_He's not dead._

She slammed on the breaks so hard the smell of burning rubber filled her nose.

She did not know why she stopped. She did not know why when the man decided after a long pause where she did not drive away to walk over to the other side of the car and get in the passengers seat she both let him and was not afraid.

He did not question why she was letting him join her and so she decided to stop questioning herself.

Maybe this was the third thing she was learning about herself.

She was a good person.

XxX

He is placed on guard duty on the wall although he also spends a good portion of his days on the outside hunting. He tells the others it is because after so long being out there he cannot stand being behind the walls all the time.

They do not seem to agree with him but at least they believe him.

Well most of them. Michonne and Rick simply look at him with knowing eyes and they all pretend to not to notice how closely they begin to look after him.

Daryl doesn't care. He simply spends half his days wandering the outskirts of the fences with his bow in the hopes that outside of the walls Beth will come back to him.

XxX

She doesn't believe the man, Morgan, was also originally heading to DC until he shows her the carefully marked out map. Even then she is weary.

But as the days pass she learns to trust him. Begins to appreciate having another person around to share the tedious driving and when they finally run out of gas and have to continue on foot she begins to be thankful for having someone to have her back.

She grows to like Morgan, if only for the simple fact that he does not spend the hours by talking about his past which would only remind her that she cannot remember her own.

She knows he has seen the scar that mars her forehead, the lopsided ponytail that covers up the part of her hair that is only just growing back in. But Morgan never asks her questions.

He gives her songs though and Beth soon begins to join her voice to his as they move steadily onwards.

XxX

Slowly Daryl begins to stop expecting to see her around every tree, that every snap of a twig isn't her walking up behind him. He begins to bring back more game on his hunts as he slowly focuses more on the hunt then on looking for her.

But that is only in his waking hours.

At night memories and dreams of Beth comfort him more than any words the others say to him ever could.

XxX

She is ill and Morgan is injured when the stranger finds them.

He tells them his name is Aaron and that he comes from a safe community where they can receive treatment if they wish it.

Morgan makes a point to ask if they will be expected to stay if they go there for help.

It is only until after they have been assured ten times that they will be free to leave whenever they want to that Morgan agrees to follow the man back to his camp.

Beth is so ill she passes out on the way there and only wakes up once when Morgan carries her through the fence in the dark.

XxX

Rick was smiling again.

A man, a stranger to all but Rick, Carl and Michonne, had appeared in the street the previous day, calling out Rick's name in wonder.

It was clear to all they knew each other, though to what extent Daryl could not tell. At first the men had simply shaken hands but then Rick was pulling the stranger to him in a brief but tight hug.

That night the group was told the story of how Morgan saved Rick the day he fled the hospital. They mentioned that they met a second time but they do not discuss it much. Daryl understands that is when Carl and Michonne met him though. Morgan tells them about finding the church and the note and map addressed to Rick. He had decided to follow it simply because he did not know how to find anyone else he had ever known so he decided to try to find the only one that he could.

Someone asks him about the large bandage on his arm and Morgan tells them he cut it on a broken window the day before Aaron found them.

"Would've bled out before that but Beth managed to bandage it up tight enough to hold me over." Morgan does not notice the hush that falls over the room at the name. Daryl feels something in his chest tighten and then shatter as the man continues. "She's pretty sick right now but when she's all healed up I know she'd love to meet y'all."

Rick is still in the process of telling him they would love to meet this new Beth when Daryl walks out the front door.

XxX

It takes over a week for the illness to leave her system.

She has to wait another two days, confined to the house she shares with Morgan so that she would not spread her germs and cause an outbreak in the community.

Finally she is granted clearance to leave and join the world that she sometimes spies at through the window but still she waits. She does not think she can face the world outside this house alone.

She has never seen so many people in one place before. The hospital had not had even a third of this number. The sheer amount of faces makes her huddle on the floor of her empty closet, palms over her ears as she sings every song she knows in an attempt to calm down.

XxX

He is not told until the door is opening that their weekly family dinner will be having two extra guests that night. Morgan is already crossing the threshold of the house and Daryl knows it would be considered to be rude if he leaves now but he is still turning for the back door, not wanting to see some stranger with her name, when the sound of breaking glass fills his ear.

Daryl turns quickly, his hand already on the knife he insists on wearing on his hip, when Maggie starts running. His gaze follows her to the doorway and there she stands.

Thinner than he remembers, her face more angular and pale then his visions. Her hair is shorter, the ponytail arranged as if to cover up a part of her head. Her blue eyes are wide with alarm and surprise as she looks at them all staring back at her in disbelief and joy.

_The others can see her too._

But it is the small circular scar on her face that proves to Daryl that this is real. That she is really here.

Somehow this isn't a vision and she is really here. And that means, she's alive.

_Beth is alive._

Daryl stands rooted to the spot, unable to move and at the same time unable to tear his eyes away from the girl in the doorway. He is still silently yelling at himself to wake up, sure that this is a dream because it is far to good to be true, when Maggie reaches her.

She throws her arms around Beth with a startled sob as everyone begins to push closer to the pair in the doorway. Morgan stands slightly behind Beth, the expression of confusion on his face surely mirroring the one on Daryl's.

Beth's startled eyes meet his from across the room and it is that which finally breaks through to him and suddenly Daryl can move again. He is pushing his way past the others, trying to reach her when Maggie finally pulls away from Beth to cup her face in her hands.

Her voice is filled with disbelief as she whispers, "Bethy...you're alive."

And suddenly Daryl finds himself wishing very much that he hadn't moved closer because he sees the flash in Beth's eyes, sees her pull away from her sister in fright.

He hears every ounce of terror and confusion in her voice as she huddles against the door frame and whispers, "How do you know my name?"

AN2: The song the old man sings is 'the parting glass'.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thank you all so much for your positive feedback! You're all wonderful. Some of you have asked if I plan to continue this and the answer is yes. I'm unsure of the length but this will be multichaptered.

**Chapter Two**

They are all staring at her. These strangers whose hands seem to keep reaching for her, whose eyes take her in like she is water and they are dying of thirst. She can do nothing but stare back at them, the wood frame of the door pressing hard into her back as she wishes that she had declined Morgan's invitation to meet his friend. She finds herself wishing she had just stayed in their house on the closet floor forever.

The woman who had hugged her, well more of clung to her really, makes some noise of confusion as she stares at her.

"Bethy. It's me." her green eyes are wide with disbelief and Beth presses her back harder into the wood, needing the sensation to keep her grounded. Her brain begins to feel like it is pulsing like it always did after the sessions where Edwards tried to hard to jog her memory.

Beth shakes her head and looks at the strangers staring at her, watching her. Only one can no longer seem to meet her eyes.

The man is older than her, his dark hair and beard showing a few stray gray hairs. He had met her eyes from across the room with blue orbs that seemed to pierce straight through her. But he is not looking at her now. He is the only one who seems to understand what the others cannot even begin to fathom.

They are all strangers.

The woman before her is saying something else but Beth can no longer makes sense of the words. Her breathing grows ragged as she watches the strangers' mouths move but no words make sense to her as it all blurs together into an incomprehensible hum. All she wants is to sink to the floor and place her hands over her ears to block out the sound of their voices. But she can't do that, can't trust these strangers not to use her weakness against her. So she does the one thing she can do.

She turns out the still open door and runs.

XxX

Everyone stands rooted to the spot before flinging questions at Morgan. The man looks at them all in bafflement before he shakes his head once. His voice is laced with confusion as he speaks.

"She never mentioned her past so I never asked."

Daryl doesn't need to hear anything else. That just means Beth was alive and _here._ The burning need to see her again devours him and suddenly he is pushing past the others to head out the door, searching the street desperately for her retreating form.

The road is empty.

That fact does not stop him. Daryl once ran for two days in the attempts to find Beth. He would run twice that long to find her again.

XxX

She runs in no particular direction and pays for it dearly when she cannot locate the house she shares with Morgan. This was the first time she had ever been outside of the safety of its walls and when she cannot find it her hands begin to tremble with a dizzying concoction of nerves and fears.

All the houses look the same, the streets they sit on so uniform they blend into one endless road in her mind. It takes her less than a minute to realize the fact that she is hopelessly lost.

The area behind the walls was not that large. She knew she would be able to find the house once she calmed down. But she couldn't seem to calm down.

Her breath came in ragged spurts as she tore down empty streets, running as fast as she could in the desperate hopes that she would be able to out run the strangers who looked at her with such pleading eyes.

Beth didn't know why she was so terrified of them. The rational part of her brain was whispering to her that this was a good thing, that these people would be able to tell her who she was and maybe even tell her about the accident that no one in the hospital ever bothered to explain.

But still she ran, skirting the inner edges of the walls as she began to feel trapped like a rat in a maze. She heard the sound of someone calling her name softly, to scared to yell her name in fear that it would bring the walkers to the walls but still calling for her anyways. The sound of her name in a stranger's mouth made her push her feet to go faster, to ignore the pounding of her heart and head as she ran in the opposite direction of their voice.

XxX

The others had followed him out onto the street. He could hear the sounds of their voices and their footsteps as he turned the corner and kept running. Daryl finds himself wishing for street lamps so he could see better in the encroaching darkness. The bizarreness of finding he misses such a mundane thing would have nearly made him laugh in normal circumstances.

But this was nowhere even close to normal.

A large part of him was still convinced that this was a dream but even his worst nightmares had never had Beth look at him with that blank look on her face. He had never had to see her look at him with not a single fleck of recognition in her eyes.

He keeps running, ignoring the soft calls of her name behind him as he reaches the fence and begins to run the lap around it. Daryl ignores the curious and baffled looks the people on guard duty are shooting down at him as he passes them by. The only thing that he can focus on is Beth.

XxX

She realizes quickly that she cannot hope to out run them forever. Eventually someone would see her and then what would happen? They would force her to talk to them, to listen to them tell her who she is.

She is surprised to find that she is not ready.

As she ducks behind a small storage shed by one of the corners of the fence Beth finally understands why she fled that house.

She does not want to know.

She had spent so long waiting for memories to come back to her, for the chance to learn who she used to be, and now that she has been presented with the opportunity she realizes she doesn't want to know. At least not like this.

She does not want to be told who she is by the words of strangers.

Beth leans back against the worn wood of the shed and tries to get her breathing under control as she accepts the truth.

She doesn't want to be told who she was. She just wants to be who _she is_.

XxX

He can't find her.

Daryl's search grows more and more frantic as he begins his third lap around the walls. He vaguely catches someone on guard duty asking him if this was the new exercise regime but he ignores it. His breathing has grown labored but he cannot stop running. He thought he had caught a glimpse of the group heading back to the house he shared with the Grimes family and Michonne but Daryl didn't bother to go and check. If he went in there to check they might tell him that none of this was real.

The longer he was away from Beth the more he was beginning to doubt that what he thought had happened in the house had actually happened.

She hadn't been there at all, he had simply hallucinated her again. Or maybe there had been a girl and she had looked a bit like Beth but she wasn't_his_ Beth. That was why she ran. She was scared of how they had reacted to seeing her.

Daryl finally has to stop, collapsing to his knees at the corner of the fences as he lets the truth wash over him.

It hadn't really been her at all.

He digs his fingers into the soil beneath them as the sobs begin to build up inside of him.

He had lost her, again.

XxX

Eventually she sinks down to a sitting position, leaning her head back against the shed as she watches the stars begin to appear in the night sky one by one. Part of her wonders if the night sky had always been so bright and full of wonder or if the lights that she knew people had created had blocked them out.

Another part of her whispers that it doesn't matter.

Her heartbeat begins to return to its normal pace and as it does the throbbing of her brain finally begins to ease. Beth lets out a soft sigh as she reaches her hand up to rub the scar on her forehead quizzically.

Her brain races with questions that she still cannot answer as her breathing returns to normal. She shivers against the chilly spring air and wonders if she will actually be able to find her way to her house after all. It wouldn't matter if she couldn't she supposed, she had spent several nights sleeping outside on their journey up here and at least here behind the walls she would be safe.

XxX

The sobs never do come. Instead he huddles on the ground, pressing his forehead into the dirt as violent shudders run through him. Daryl begins to think that he is not crying simply because there are no tears left inside of him. He has run his eyes dry after all the times he had cried over Beth Greene.

When the thought to move finally comes to him his bare arms are already long since covered in goosebumps. He tries to unclench his fingers from the dirt but finds he seems to have lost control of his body. Nothing will move, nothing will listen to him. Eventually he stops trying.

XxX

Her body has calmed down entirely and now it is merely shaking from the cold and not her fear. Although the fear has not left her, it has simply been joined by the confusion, relief and strange enough rage that are battling inside her mind.

Beth lets out a soft moan as the truth begins to come to her.

She will never be able to live peacefully here if the sight of its inhabitants make her feel this way.

Silently she promises herself that in the morning she will leave. She will continue on to DC, solo now that Morgan has found the man he was originally following. The thought of returning alone to the world outside the safety of these walls does not scare her. She survived by herself before she found Morgan she knows she will survive after.

Yet even with those reaffirmations her brain will not quiet itself. Her palms move to cover her ears reflexively as she begins to sing, determined to quiet the mess that was her mind.

XxX

Daryl does not know how long he was laying there before something broke through the shell of pain that was his body.

It was a voice.

It only took a few words before Daryl realized that it was _her _voice.

It is a song he knows, one he heard her sing before behind the darkness of the prison walls. His muscles begin to relax as her soothing voice flows over him. He had never thought he would hear her sing again. It was worth the pain of his last hallucination if it meant he go to hear her voice one more time.

There is a small lull after she finishes the song and Daryl is just about to speak, to plead for her to keep singing, when she begins again.

This time the melody and the words are unfamiliar and it is not just because Daryl has never heard Beth sing it before.

He does not know this song.

Ever so slowly his eyes crack open and he lifts his head from the dirt.

XxX

Songs come easier to her now. Perhaps it is because after her time with the other wards at the hospital and traveling with Morgan she now knows so many. The songs feel like gift they all had given her and Beth finds she is grateful for every tune, every word, as she sings until her throat has gone dry and scratchy. Her brain has quieted enough for her to slowly move her palms down off of her ears but she still keeps her eyes shut tight, not willing to face the world just yet.

XxX

It is not until she has sung a third song that he is unfamiliar with that Daryl raises to his knees. Not until she has sung the fifth that he stumbles to his feet. On the seventh he slowly begins to let his feet move, to follow the sound of her voice as if she is a siren. But if she is a siren Daryl would gladly drown himself in her.

He follows the sound of her singing to a small shed a mere ten feet from where he had collapsed. His footsteps are slow and unsure as he approaches the edge of the building. Daryl does not know what he expects to find on the other side of it but he knows that if he turns the corner and no one is there it will be the end. The fragile grip he has felt like he's had on his sanity since he saw that bullet leave her skull will finally snap.

And once its broken Daryl knows without a doubt it will never heal.

He has just reached this conclusion when her singing stops.

XxX

She rubs her hands up and down her bare arms in an attempt to bring some warmth into them but it doesn't help. She finds herself missing the dirty gray cardigan she'd had to throw out a few weeks back when there was finally too much gore on it for her to handle wearing. The smell of the dead already haunted her dreams she did not need it to fill her waking hours as well.

Beth shivers as a small breeze begins to pick up and again tells herself to move. That she needed to get up and attempt to find her house before Morgan worried to much. That she needed to start gathering supplies so she could continue on to DC.

But still she does nothing but bring her knees up to her chest and wrap her thin arms around them in the hopes to bring some warmth back into her body.

XxX

It takes him six tries to turn the corner of the shed. Each time he makes to move around it he finds himself caught by a doubt so crippling that he finds it hard to breath. In the end it is not the pep talks he gives himself, not the thought of how much joy he would feel if he got to see her face again, but the fact that whether she was there or not his question would be answered that makes him swing around it.

At first he sees nothing.

Daryl feels his insides start to rip apart, his mind begin to shatter, when the smallest of noises draws his gaze downwards.

And there she sits.

She is huddled into a tight ball near his feet. Daryl can see the slight tremble of her body and he cannot tell if it is from the cold or from the fear of seeing him.

He finds he does not want to know.

All he can do is stare down at her, his mouth moving but unable to form any coherent words. Beth says nothing as she watches him with wide eyes that Daryl thought he would never see again.

He still doesn't know if she is real but when minutes have passed and she still has not gotten up to run or flickered from his sight Daryl finds himself taking the smallest of steps forward. She flinches but otherwise does not move. And so it takes nearly ten minutes for Daryl to close the few inches between them so he is leaning against the wall next to her. It takes another five for him to ease himself down to sit beside her.

Every time he moves he expects her to run but still she sits, simply watching him unnervingly.

He finds he has so much to say but he cannot seem to get words to string together so he sits in a silence that she returns. Daryl still doesn't know if this is real or not but the fact that she is not speaking unnerves him. He cannot tear his eyes away from her and every time that he blinks he is sure she will disappear. So ever so slowly he moves his arm down from his own raised knees. He holds his breath waiting for the moment when his flesh passes through hers, waiting for her to run., waiting for the moment when she disappears forever.

Instead his arm lays to rest against the warmth of hers.

XxX

She doesn't know why she has not run away. Perhaps it is because the man beside her looks as though he himself might flee at any moment but it is mostly because he does not talk. He opens his mouth a few times as if he might try but each time he says nothing before he shuts it again.

Beth finds she is grateful.

She does not want to know what he has to say, she is not yet ready to hear who this man is or who he thinks she is.

No, who she _was._

So they sit in a silence that is neither awkward nor companionable all while watching each other with wide eyes.

When he moves his arm she sees it, knows what is coming. Yet still she does not move except to tense up in anticipation of contact with his flesh.

She is proud when she does not flinch away at his touch.

For a long moment neither of them seem to even breath.

Beth realizes this is the first person to touch her since Morgan carried her through the gates. That this is the first person to ever touch her on purpose but for no real reason.

The thought sends her brain back into the bad place.

She tries to fight back against the pain, terror and confusion that are beginning to worm their ways to the front of her brain. It doesn't take Beth long to know she will not be able to simply will this episode away. Her breath begins to go ragged and she sees the man look at her with concern. All she wants to do is to clamp her hands over her ears and sing but if she does that she will not be able to keep the man's arm touching her and for some reason that thought scares her.

He is still looking at her, concern evident in his features as he moves to pull his arm away and Beth knows she cannot have that. She knows the second his touch leaves her the bad place will take over her brain. She reaches blindly for his hand on the dirt beside her and slips her fingers between his.

Their hands cling together tightly as if they are the only thing holding the other to the earth.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

He's not sure how long they sit in silence, clutching each other's hands so tightly that their knuckles turn white. Her hand is warm in his despite the chill in the air and the feel of it is enough to make him stop being afraid to blink.

She will not disappear from sight if he does.

After a while he even feels brave enough to look away from her for brief periods of time, the weight of her hand in his enough for a few seconds glance around their surroundings. Not that there is anything near him that is better to look at then Beth. Even the stars in the sky dimmed with her beside him.

It is not long after Beth's breathing has returned to normal when Daryl looks over at her and realizes that she has fallen asleep, her head resting back against the wall of the shed. Daryl uses the moment to stare at her unabashedly, to study the features of her face that are both so familiar and so entirely new.

The scars that mar her face make his blood boil in anger. He knows all to well what the small circular scar on her forehead is from, he can still remember the taste of her blood as it painted his lips. The one on her cheek and forehead he does not know the cause but they have healed in the time that passed since he saw them briefly at the hospital.

Beth looks older than he remembers, perhaps not in years but in experiences. When she was awake the skin near her mouth was pulled taunt but it has smoothed out in her sleep. She looks almost peaceful with the signs of her panic erased from her face.

A small gust of wind causes a shiver to run through him and Daryl realizes he'd rather not spend the night outside shivering when he could sleep in his own warm bed. The fact that he still has a bed still amazes him.

He cannot and will not leave Beth out here but at the same time he is loathe to wake her. He tries to tell himself its because he knows that she needs rest and that she looks so calm in her slumber. But the selfish part of him knows he doesn't want to wake her because he does not know how much longer he can stand her looking at him as though he is a stranger.

Careful not to jostle her to much Daryl manages to pull her up into his arms, carrying her bridal style.

He doesn't even make it a step before the memory of the last time he carried her this way overwhelms him. His heart begins to pound as he looks down at her face, shining in the moonlight. He is unable to breath until he sees the soft raise and fall of her chest proving to him that she is still here.

He begins to walk back towards the houses, having to stop every few steps to check on the fact that she is indeed breathing. The memory of carrying her down those five flights of stairs, of being so sure that she was dead in his arms threatens to drag him under. It is only the warmth of her flesh seeping through his clothing and her calm breathing that keeps him afloat.

Daryl pauses as he passes the first houses as he realizes he has no idea which one is hers. He looks around at the uniform houses wearily before deciding that he can't very well knock on every door until he finds it. Seeing no other option he turns in the direction of the house he lives in but still cannot yet call home.

XxX

She appeared to be moving although she was not telling her body to do so.

Beth's eyes fluttered open in confusion and she saw the face of the man with the blue eyes above her and realized with a jolt that he was holding her in his arms. Her sleep muddled mind was surprisingly not as terrified of this as she would have likely been had she been truly awake. Instead she found the rocking motion of his footsteps to be soothing and allowed herself to be lulled back to sleep, the briefest flash of a food loaded table coming to her before she slipped back into a dreamless sleep.

XxX

The last time he carried her runs on repeat in his mind. The shot, the blood, the stairs, the _screams_, but most all the fact that he dropped her. The knowledge that Beth was nearly eaten by walkers because he couldn't hold on to her causes his heart to seize.

The guilt and the memory threatens to overwhelm his mind so as he walks down the dark and deserted streets Daryl finally lets himself think of memories that he usually deemed to painful to even begin to remember while awake.

He had carried her before this and before the day that haunted both his sleeping and waking hours. He could still hear the soft sound of her breath as she gasped in surprise when he lifted her into the air. Could nearly feel the warmth of her arms as they held onto him. To this day he still didn't know why he had picked her up, he just knew that in that moment he had wanted to be closer to her.

It was there in the funeral home that the truth of what he felt for Beth had slowly crept up on him. He had tried to ignore it for so long but being alone with Beth as he was there wasn't very much to distract him from her. To distract him from the feelings that only grew with each passing moment in her presence.

Daryl carefully adjusted her weight as he eased open the unlocked door to the house. For a moment he stands in the entryway, casting an uneasy glance down the hallway where his room lies. He struggles silently with where to put her, knowing that she would be more comfortable in his bed but also knowing that she would likely be terrified to wake up in a strange house let alone a strange bed. Carefully he crosses the few feet to the couch and eases her down onto it. He has to leave the room to fetch a blanket from his bed and the whole time he held his breath sure that when he came back she would finally have flickered out of sight.

Yet she is still there when he returns and ever so carefully spreads the blanket over her. Beth curls her hands into it instinctively and Daryl stands over her for a moment unsure of what to do. He knows he will not be returning to his room that night, not with the chance to be near her. He has just turned to head towards one of the chairs across the room when a small hand closes around his.

He turns slowly to look down at Beth but her eyes are not open and Daryl is not sure if she is even awake as she whispers, "Stay."

Beth could have asked anything of him in that moment and he would have given it to her. Anything to keep her next to him, and this was something he was more than willing to give. Slowly he sank to his knees, wrapping his other hand around both of theirs as he whispered, "Forever."

XxX

She doesn't even need to open her eyes to know that she is somewhere unfamiliar. Ever so slowly she eases her eyes open to stare in confusion at the strange room before her. A brief flash of panic fills her as she sits up, trying to figure out where she was and how she had gotten there. Her eyes fall on the man asleep on the floor beside the couch where she lays.

His head rests on his arm which is stretched out across the seats towards her. Her hand is mere inches from his and Beth wonders briefly is she had grabbed his hand again in the night. She is surprised when the thought doesn't spin her into a panic.

It takes her a few more moments to place the room in the gray light of dawn as the one she had been in the night before. The one with the strangers and their searching eyes. Now the panic sets in and her breath begins to quicken as she edges onto her knees. She pushes the loose hair back from her face as the memories of the night before return to her. She can feel herself slipping into terror as one thought makes it through.

_I can't stay here._

Careful not to wake the man beside her Beth clamored off the couch and began to edge quietly to the door knowing that it was more than her not being able to stay in that house that caused her to flee it for the second time.

She couldn't stay in this town.

XxX

Daryl wakes slower than usual, his mind clinging to sleep as he realizes that waking up means facing the real world. Facing a world without Beth.

_It was a dream_. He reminds himself as he tries to remember every last part of it so he would have something to hold on to in the rough days to follow.

In his dream he had fallen asleep holding her hand but now his hand feels cold and empty where it lays. Daryl keeps his eyes closed as he tries to hold on to every last bit of his dream. He hadn't had such a vivid one since the day that she died and that had been more of a nightmare than a dream.

He can hear the faint sound of Rick and Michonne whispering in the kitchen, hears Judith gurgle out something unintelligible, but still he keeps his eyes clenched shut.

He can't face the world without her, not just yet.

XxX

She finds she does not have very much to pack. Beth had come to this sanctuary behind walls with little more than the clothes on her back and the companion at her side and she was going to leave it with even less.

She feels guilty taking food from Morgan but she rationalizes herself with the fact that the people in this town did not bring him into their safety just to let him starve. She uses the torn backpack she had procured on the first leg of their trip and fills it with what she thinks would be her share of their food. She even leaves him a little more, sure to leave the cans of food she knows to be his favorite.

The pack is slung tight over her shoulders and she is halfway to the front door before she debates leaving a note. But she cannot think of anything she could write that would make him understand why she had to leave when she still didn't fully understand it herself. Beth finally decides she would rather not say goodbye to him., it would be to painful for both of them.

She has just reached this decision, her hand on the doorknob, when his voice calls out from behind her.

"You leaving just like that then?"

XxX

He had just talked himself into opening his eyes, into facing the world without her once more, when the front door opens so quickly it nearly dents the wall behind it.

Daryl's eyes snap open and for a moment he stares at the worn blue blanket resting on the couch beside him. He remembered then that he had covered Beth with a blanket in his dream and he feels a brief flare of panic that he has now resorted to sleep walking before he notices the sheer amount of people flooding into the room.

Maggie's eyes look red rimmed from crying as she passes him with a small smile and Daryl feels his brow knit together in confusion. The others keep walking past him to settle down in various places through out the room and Daryl wonders briefly if they are there for him. Maybe he hadn't been asleep last night and had simply reacted to a hallucination while awake, it wouldn't have been the first time after all. They might all be here to talk some sense into him, Daryl's not sure he can handle that just yet. He is still debating if he should leave or not when the couch behind him shifts suddenly and Daryl twists his head to see Rick looking down at him in concern as he shifts Judith in his lap.

"You holding up alright?" he asks softly, his eyes shining with concern as Daryl blinked up at him.

He had hallucinated Beth again and Rick wanted to know if he was holding up? His brain was still shaking the last bits of sleep from it when Michonne sat on the other side of Daryl, just as Glenn spoke from across the room.

"I think we need to come up with a plan about Beth."

Everyone paused for a moment as they began to think up ideas but Daryl froze for a whole other reason. Glenn had seen her too? Then that meant...

His voice is barely more than a breath as he whispered, "It was real." And for once it was not a question.

Only the two people next to him seemed to have heard him, the others beginning to throw ideas out to the room. Daryl feels Rick grip his shoulder tightly as Michonne leans down to whisper to him.

"It was real Daryl." He turns to face her in time to see one of her rare smiles slowly bloom across her face. "Beth is alive."

XxX

Ever so slowly Beth let go of the doorknob to cast a look over her shoulder to where Morgan stood in the hallway. His brow was furrowed the way it always was when he disapproved of her ideas. They stared at each other for what felt like hours, him being to stubborn to speak and her being to unsure of what to say.

"I'm no good with goodbyes." she finally admits softly.

Morgan shakes his head as he takes a few steps closer to her. "I'm not talking about that." his dark eyes bore into hers as he finally stops a few feet away. Beth has to fight down the feeling of being trapped, reminding herself that this is Morgan, her friend. He would not hurt her. "You're gonna leave you're family behind again?"

Beth's skin prickled at the accusation that she was the one who left them as her brain began to pound at the word _family._ She digs the nails of her right hand into her palm, the biting sensation helping to clear her head. The word seemed to echo around her brain, numbing all of her senses as the silence grew tenser as it stretched on between them. Finally Beth can take it no more and one thought manages to break free from her lips.

"They're not my family."

Morgan does not seem shocked by this revelation. Instead he merely shakes his head at her in confusion and proclaims. "Yes, they are."

And suddenly it is as though everything she has felt since the woman threw her arms around her the night before hits her and Beth can barely stop herself from yelling. "No! They're not! Don't you see? Don't any of you see?" the image of the man who held her hand, who carried her to a warm place, fills her mind of its own accord.

_He sees._ She whispers to herself before continuing to fling her angry and frustrated words at Morgan.

"I don't know who they are!" and it feels so good saying it aloud, hearing the truth instead of just thinking it. So she says it again, this time a whisper as her shoulders slump in defeat.

"I don't know who they are."

XxX

Ever so slowly the words "Beth's alive." stop echoing in his head and he allows himself to tune into to the other's conversation. He listens with only half an ear as they talk about how miraculous it is that Beth is not only alive but there with them. Daryl agrees with them but he does not bother to say anything aloud.

Beth was alive and here but for once he was not dreaming.

For once it was all real.

If there was ever going to be something that would make Daryl Dixon jump with joy this was it. The longer he sat and let the fact that she was alive sink into him the giddier he became. Beth was _alive._

Only one thing was preventing him from running off to find her, the same thing that was keeping everyone in this room and not out looking for Beth.

"She doesn't remember any of us." Maggie sounds so heartbroken as she says what they were all thinking but not saying aloud. Daryl can hear the pain in her voice but behind that he thinks he can hear guilt. He remembers suddenly the night when the nightmares kept him awake and he overheard Maggie crying to Glenn about how if she had looked for Beth after the prison she would still be alive. Daryl was no stranger to guilt and he knew that both him and Maggie felt their fair share of it when it came to Beth. How many times did he lay awake thinking about how he should have stopped her from stepping towards that cop? How he should have checked the door before opening it at the funeral home? The fact that Beth was alive wasn't going to make their guilt magically go away.

"Maybe we could try to jog her memory." Sasha suggests from where she stands by the window. Daryl's eyes drift to her as she shrugs and continues. "Tell her of things that happened and hope that they make her remember on her own."

The idea of sitting down and telling Beth about everything that happened between them after the prison and before she was taken consumes him. He could tell her about the moonshine house, and burning away their pasts. He could tell her about the dog and her singing and how she held him together as moonshine, rage and sorrow threatened to tear him apart.

The memory of her holding him brings him back to the night before, to the events that he now knew were real. Of Beth shaking like a leaf at the mere sight of him, of her frantic breathing at his touch. Of the look of pure terror in her eyes when Maggie said her name. Telling her about her past might shake a few memories lose or it might destroy her mind entirely. And then they would likely lose her for good.

His voice cuts across everyone else's as he speaks, "No. If she remembers it has to be on her own."

XxX

If Morgan was phased by her outburst he didn't show it. He simply shook his head again, bringing her ebbing fury back to the foreground with the motion before he spoke, the words cutting through the fury to hit her in the heart.

"You're afraid."

Suddenly she finds she can't look at him and she focuses on the wall just behind his ear. She wasn't afraid, was she? She had already faced so much, had faced the overrun world on her own without flinching but the thought of these strangers was sending her mind into a downward spiral. She had thought what she was feeling was panic, but was Morgan right? Was it fear?

"Its okay to be afraid Beth." his voice is soft and while he directed it at her Beth feels sure that he is also saying it to remind himself.

She shakes her head as she struggles to calm her mind down, to focus on where she was instead of the night before. If she was afraid, then what was she afraid of? The people hadn't seemed to want to hurt her so why was she reacting in such a severe way?

"They think they know me." she finally admits in a tiny voice as she tries to blink the dark spots out of her left eye to better focus on the man before her.

"They do." a small noise of frustration slips out of her throat at Morgan's words. They did not know her, not this version of her.

"Or at least they did once. But I know you too. And I know that you don't run from the things that scare you. That change?"

Morgan's gaze seems to lock her in place as Beth thinks it over. He was right, running wasn't usually her style. Was she going to let these people change that about her?

XxX

For a moment the group is quiet, letting his words sink in.

"Her memories might come back to her with time." Eugene admits in a drawl from where he stands near the door. Everyone looks at him, causing him to flinch under the pressure of all their gazes. "All depends on what parts of her brain were damaged by the bullet." it looked like he was about to keep going but Tara reached over to touch his arm, shaking her head at him as everyone's faces paled under yet another reminder that Beth had been shot in the head.

_But she survived._ Daryl whispered to himself, remembering the day she flung those words at him in a fury.

Maggie's voice is soft as it cuts through his memories to ask, "What if she never remembers?"

Daryl's heart skips a beat at the thought. He knew that Beth's memories were gone, that her mind was damaged from the bullet, but he was still accepting the fact that she was _alive._ He hadn't even yet begun to consider the possibility that her memories would never return to her.

At first it is the selfish part of his brain that reacts to this thought. That realizes that she might never remember serious piggybacks or white trash brunches or how she single handedly gave him faith and kept his spirit alive after the prison. But then other things come to him and he realizes that Beth might never remember the sound of Lori's laugh or her father's smile. Yes there were things he himself wishes he could forget but he would never trade any of his good memories to get rid of one of the bad. The bad ones made the good ones even more precious, made them mean more.

He needed both the memories to keep him going sometimes, to remember things could be worse or that they might just get better.

But Beth, she had neither.

XxX

"Look I won't tell you what to do but," Morgan sighs as he watches her with heavy eyes. "Just think about staying alright? Whatever it is you're looking for, whatever you think you'll find in DC, its already here Beth. You already found it."

Beth is still processing his words when he turns to walk away. Her voice comes out smaller than she has ever heard it as she finally asks the question that had been pressing on her since the night before.

"Do you think they're telling the truth?" Her mind is going haywire and she can barely get the next sentence out, can barely allow her brain to form such a thought let alone her mouth. "Do you really think they're my family?"

Morgan's eyes hold a sadness that she cannot even begin to fathom as he turns back to her and whispers. "Beth, they have no reason to lie."

XxX

"It's possible." Eugene pauses to clear his throat as everyone stares at him in the hopes that he will tell Maggie that of course Beth would eventually get her memories back. Instead he whispers, "It's entirely possible that the part of her brain that stores memories was too badly damaged. If that's the case then they will never return to her."

Daryl's blood runs cold as Eugene's words begin to sink into him. The Beth he knew, the Beth he remembered and dreamed of, that might not be the same Beth here now. And even if she was the same(but how could she be the same Beth without the memories of their past? Of _her_ past?) she still didn't know of the things they had all faced together, or even of the things that she had faced alone. It was possible that she would never know the memories he had to cling onto in the worst of times to keep him going. She might never know all the things that brought their group together, that made them more than just fellow survivors but family. The truth of it hits him so hard he has to struggle to breath.

She might never remember what he would never forget.

XxX

Her breathing is growing ragged at the very idea that she has a family let alone that her family was within her reach. Part of her feels as though she should run through the streets until she finds them, beg them to tell her everything they know, about her and about each other. But the larger part of her flinches and cowers from the very thought. All she wants to do is go find somewhere small and quiet and hunker down until all this is over. She should stay, the rational part of her brain knows she should stay, but she still isn't sure if she wants to. And even if she does stay she knows she cannot be close to those people, not yet. Her mind would not be able to handle the looks of familiarity on their faces as they stared at her.

She cannot promise Morgan she will stay but she can tell him the truth. "I can't be near them."

"You don't have to be. Not until you want to." Morgan sounds so sure when he speaks that Beth can't help wondering if he was wishing he was in the strangers' place. If he was wishing someone he thought was dead would return to him alive. Even if they couldn't remember him.

It was all becoming to much for her and she could feel her pulse beating rapidly in her temple as she shook her head. "And if I never want to?"

"They'll give you time Beth." he sounds so sure but Beth still does not believe him. Is he only saying how he would feel? He doesn't know these strangers either so how could he be so sure?

But maybe he knows more about this kind of thing than she is giving him credit for. Regardless, he is the only person she has to talk to about all of this. Her voice is the smallest of whispers as she asks the final question on her mind, "How much time?"

Morgan gives a dry laugh as he looks at her. There is no humor in it but Beth can hear the pain as he whispers, "For you? Forever."


	4. Chapter 4

Trigger warning: there is very brief mention of self harm in the first section.

**Chapter Four**

Morgan agreed to do her yet another kindness and go and talk to her _family_. The word still sent Beth into a panic but with each time she thought it the panic ebbed a margin. She still felt no connection to the word or to the people whose faces she had seen briefly the night before. Her mind was the same as it always had been, it was as though she had never existed before Edwards saved her life.

Of course the problem was that she _had._

She knew that much to be true of course. People did not just pop into existence at her age. And even if she hadn't been aware of that fact (which thank God she was. Just thinking of the awkward conversations not knowing that bit of knowledge could have led her to have made her cringe) she could tell that her body had been around for a lot longer than her mind.

Her body held the memory of past experiences that her mind could not recall. Beth had long since learned the location of every single scar on her body and spent countless hours wondering about their sources.

There were the obvious ones on her face: the small circular bullet wound on her forehead and the exit wound near the crown of her head (thankfully the parts of her hair that Edwards had shaved off were growing back in enough to cover it), those ones she knew the source. But the jagged scar on her cheek and the matching one on her forehead were a mystery to her as were the small scar across her stomach and upper right thigh. The one on her left knee that looked like she fell on something and then there was a small one on her right hand, nearly invisible unless seen in a certain light by someone who knew where to look. And of course there was the one on her left wrist.

This was the one Beth was always the most curious of, the placement led her to believe she had given it to herself because she had no idea how else it could have gotten there. However it had come to her body Beth had taken to rubbing it with her right hand whenever she needed the reminder that she existed long before her memory began.

It seemed she was going to rub the skin around it raw that morning.

XxX

Daryl wasn't sure how long the group sat discussing what to do about Beth, he had long since tuned out their words as he struggled to come to terms with the fact that while Beth was alive she was not the same Beth that he remembered. He was still trying to wrap his mind fully around the alive part when there was a knock on the door.

He was on his feet in an instant and pushing past Rosita and Abraham to reach the front door, certain that it would be Beth on the other side. Perhaps she had remembered during the night and she was coming to see them, to hold them and tell them that everything was going to be okay now. That she remembered them. That she remembered _him._

Daryl wrenched the door open and felt his heart plummet to his stomach as he took in the sight of Morgan standing in the doorway.

Of course it wasn't Beth.

Daryl cursed himself for letting him get hopes up, he had seen firsthand how Beth was the night before, seen the complete lack of recognition for her sister and the rest of them in her eyes. It was going to take a lot more than one night for her memories to resurface, in fact it might even take a miracle. Beth had already survived what should have been (what he_ thought_ had been) a fatal head wound, Daryl still didn't know if he believed in miracles but Beth might have already used up her fill.

"Did Beth tell you anything?" her name broke through Daryl's increasingly depressing thoughts and he turned back to the room to watch Glenn get to his feet as Morgan came into the room. Maggie reached up to grasp her husband's hand as the man nodded.

"She told me what she remembers." Morgan sank down into Daryl's recently vacated seat and looked out at them all with heavy eyes. Daryl felt his pulse begin to quicken, perhaps Beth remembered something after all. Something small, or perhaps someone that they had lost. She had to remember _something_, didn't she?

"Beth says the first thing she can recall is waking up in a hospital. Says a doctor named Edwards treated her injury but she left the hospital after she healed."

Daryl held his breath as he waited for the man to keep going, the room around him quiet as everyone processed his words. Daryl kept waiting for Morgan to continue, because of course there had to be more. That couldn't be all Beth knew. As he waited for Morgan to tell them what small bits of memory Beth had from before her injury he felt a surge of gratitude that he had not open fired and killed all of the people at the hospital as he had wanted to do when Beth was shot. If he had acted on that impulse then Beth truly would be dead.

Xxx

Groaning Beth let her head fall to rest against the table where she sat. She had been trying in vain all morning to try and recall any sort of memory of her life before. All she had received for her efforts were a wall of silence and a pounding headache behind her eyes.

She kept waiting for something to pop out at her, to come to her in a flash as the memory of the DC spoon had but her other memories were proving to be far more secured than that one had been. She had considered humming the song the old man had been singing when the image had to come to her but a strange sense of fear held her back. While she wanted to remember something to prove to herself that the people here were not lying she did not want every memory her brain had erased to surge back to her at once.

The idea of it terrified her.

Beth did not know what she was truly hoping to gain from an exercise that she was only halfheartedly participating in. Truthfully, she was only even doing it because Morgan had requested it of her. He promised he would not read her memories but told her that it might help her to write them out, that maybe it would make it easier for her to piece them all together.

He had not realized that she was not only trying to complete a puzzle without the guide of a picture but with only one piece out of ten thousand.

XxX

"Does she remember anything else?" Carol asked from across the room. Silently Daryl thanked her for asking the question he was to scared to even think but the second he caught sight of Morgan shaking his head no Daryl wished no one had asked it.

The awful truth of it all truly began to sink into him, Beth's memory began after she was shot. Not only did she have no idea who any of them were but she had no idea who she was. And if her memories never came back she might never know.

Daryl drew a ragged breath and shook his head to shake the thoughts from his head. She was still alive.

_Beth is still alive._

That was something he had never expected, had never even let himself imagine to be true. But he had spent so long mourning her, seeing her when she was not truly there, that having her returned to them like this was like a twisted cosmic gift.

_She's still Beth._

Daryl tried to remind himself but the words sounded hollow even to his own ears. She was Beth of course, but not his Beth, not their Beth.

Knowing she had no idea who any of them were felt a bit like losing her all over again. Daryl kept trying to push the thought away but it remained stubbornly lodged in his mind and no matter how many times he reminded himself that she was still alive it didn't budge.

XxX

Trying to rub the black spots from her vision Beth sighed again and tapped her pencil on the edge of the paper. This whole exercise was proving to be as futile as she had expected as she stared down at the page where she had written all of two words, _DC spoon. _That was it. That was the only memory her brain had managed to procure from her life before she was shot.

The nearly blank page seemed to be mocking her and the pain behind her eyes was only increasing the longer she stared down at it. Beth suddenly felt the burning desire to rip the page to shreds or throw it into a fire or-

_Fire._

The pencil slipped from her suddenly limp fingers as an image came to her: her own hands, pale and slender, ripping pages from a book and leaning forward to feed them into a small fire.

XxX

Daryl did not know how long everyone sat questioning Morgan for every last detail he knew about Beth and what had happened to her since they left her(_No. Since he **dropped** her._) Only bits and fragments of their conversations made it past the whirlwind of thoughts in Daryl's mind. He only managed to stay focused enough to catch one full exchange.

"Daryl says we shouldn't push Beth. That we should let her remember on her own." Maggie had managed to hold off the wort of her tears and her eyes were red rimmed but dry as she directed her comment at Beth's traveling companion. The stranger who in a room full of her own family knew Beth the best.

The man's gaze turned to him then and Daryl found himself glaring back. He was looking out for Beth, surely Morgan had to see that, the man must have seen Beth's panic with being confronted with her past before. He stared at Daryl for a long moment before he finally nodded and agreed,"Probably for the best. She doesn't like to be told what to do."

Daryl couldn't help but feel slightly pleased that at least one thing he knew about Beth was still true.

Soon half of the morning had past, their members slowly trickling out as they had to head to their various jobs around the small community. There were no such ting as vacation days anymore and even having one of your loved ones return from the dead wasn't a good enough excuse to slack off these days. Soon even Daryl himself had to leave and he retreated to his room to grab his crossbow certain that he was not the best person to go stand guard on the fence at the moment as preoccupied as his brain was by other things. Well one thing, with Beth.

He was just reaching the end of the hallway, ready to turn the corner and head out the door when he was stopped in his tracks by the soft sound of Morgan saying Beth's name.

XxX

Her heart pounding Beth quickly bent to retrieve her pencil from where it had rolled under the table. Her hand was shaking as she quickly wrote out her second memory on the page. The smallest of smiles ghosted her lips as she realized that she had remembered not just one thing, but two. Maybe it would take the course of several years but she might just be able to get all of her memories back one day.

The thought excited her almost as much as it terrified her.

XxX

Back pressed flat against the wall of the hallway Daryl turned his head so that the hushed voice of the men in the other room would reach him.

"I didn't want to say this in front of the others, they seemed upset enough as it was." the heavy sigh Morgan let out made Daryl's fingers curl tighter around his crossbow. There was something else that would upset the group? The man had just told them Beth had no idea who any of them were and he knew something that might upset them _more?_

The faint scrape of a chair being pulled out from the table reached him and Daryl knew without having to look that Rick had just sat back down. For a moment Daryl wondered if he should sit as well, or find some way to brace himself against the words but there was no time as Morgan had already resumed speaking.

"This morning...Beth was going to leave."

It was lucky he had been holding his bow so tightly or he would have likely dropped it in shock.

_Beth, leave?_

Surely he must have heard Morgan wrong but Daryl heard Rick's heavy sigh and could just imagine the man placing his head in his hands for a moment as he paused to collect his thoughts.

Daryl's own thoughts were in a whirlwind. Beth had just gotten there, had just been proved to actually be _alive_ and she wanted to go? To just abandon them so soon after her return?

He had not even begun to process the thought when Morgan spoke again. Daryl straightened and looked around desperately for a way to block out the man's voice, it seemed all he knew how to do was inflict pain in Daryl.

He did not move quickly enough for the words drifted down the hallway to fill his ears.

"She's confused and terrified." there was a brief pause and Daryl used the time to head towards the front door. He was going to be late for his guard shift anyway and he could not bear to hear anymore words come out of that man's mouth.

The word leave was still bouncing around his head as he wrenched open the front door but Daryl had not yet made it outside before Morgan spoke again.

"She's afraid of you. All of you."

XxX

She kept waiting for another flash of memory to come to her but she was only met with silence. Finally the quiet of her mind and the immense silence of the house around her began to overwhelm her. The air was starting to feel heavy and each breath she took seemed to take an exorbitant amount of effort. Beth was beginning to feel suffocated by the lack of noise, even her own breath seemed to loud in this tomb of a house.

She pushed back her chair so quickly that it tipped over backwards but by the time it crashed to the floor she was already slipping out of the front door, the page with her memories written on crinkled in her clenched fist.

XxX

He didn't remember walking across the streets to the wall, nor did he remember climbing up the platform that jutted out from the top of it, all he could think about were Morgan's words. Not only was Beth afraid of them but she wanted to leave them.

Daryl did not know which part of it hurt him more. There had been a time when he would not have been surprised to learn that Beth Greene was scared of him. He was rough and and dark and most of the people in their group had been scared of him at one point or another. When he had fled the prison with Beth at his heels he had expected their following days to be spent in a tense silence. He had originally thought that the cause of it would be Beth's fear of him but instead it was his fears and guilt that had been the cause.

Beth had never been afraid of him, not really. It seemed as though she had always been able to look past his hard exterior to see the man underneath. But now, without her memories of their time together, now what would he be to her? He had seen her look at the faces of her family with fear in her eyes just the night before. Daryl knew how much that hurt and he did not know if he would be able to stand seeing that look in her eyes again.

But if she acted on the impulse Morgan had told Rick about, if she truly left like she wanted to, then Daryl wouldn't ever have to see that look. But he wouldn't get to see any of her looks. He would rather see her look at him like he was a stranger than wake up one morning and find her gone.

It didn't matter that Beth didn't remember them yet what mattered was that she didn't_ leave._

XxX

It felt as though every person she passed was staring at her.

Realistically she knows that they're not. Not all of the strangers who she sees were the ones that had been in that house the night before. In fact of them she only sees one. She catches sight of the woman with the long dreadlocks walking down the street in front of her so Beth turned and cut between two houses. She had expected the move to lead her out onto another street but instead she found herself facing the wall that gated in the community.

She is the only one standing on that side of the houses and Beth lets out a sigh of relief as the feeling of being stared at diminishes. Maybe she was wrong and no one was looking at her or they were only doing so because hers was a new face. Yet no matter what she told herself she could not shake the feeling that they were all staring at her because they knew. They knew who she was and her story, probably better than she did.

Beth wrapped her arms around herself for a moment as she tried to fight off the fresh wave of panic that was beginning to crest over her. Leaving the house while others were out had been a mistake. All she had wanted was fresh air not to be stared at like an animal in a zoo. She was just deciding to go and find a small place to hunker down in for a while when her gaze landed on a familiar form standing on a small platform roughly ten yards away.

Her feet begin to move in his direction of their own accord.

XxX

The sound of someone climbing up the rungs to the platform hits him and Daryl turned quickly to look down at who was coming up to see him. He was expecting to see Rick, Carol or perhaps even Michonne so he nearly fell over the wall at the sight of a familiar blonde head making its way up to him.

Beth climbed up onto the platform before he could even think to reach a hand down to help her up. For a moment they simply stood and stared at each, Beth looking almost confused to find herself up there beside him and Daryl quietly reminding himself that it was not a hallucination. Neither of them said anything and after a moment she merely crossed her arms over her chest and stared out at the distance beyond the fence.

They stood in silence for a long time. It is not the companionable silences they began to have after they had burned down the moonshine shack and their demons together, nor was it the tense silence that had consumed their waking hours after they fled the prison. It was not even the silence they had sat in the night before as they held on to each other's hands like they were the only thing left in the world.

For a moment Daryl began to find himself wondering if perhaps the reason Beth seemed to be seeking him out was because deep down some part of her remembered him. Morgan had said that she was afraid of them yet here she was. Standing only a foot away on the tiny wooden platform beside him. If he wanted to he could reach out his hand and brush her arm, touch her and feel yet again how alive she truly was.

The longer she stands beside him the more questions begin to rattle around in his brain. He wants to ask her so many things but the group had all already promised not to talk to Beth about their past unless she brought it up first. Still so many things were burning in his brain, the main one being if she still intended to leave. Was she standing up there with him to help herself plan which way she wanted to go when she left him?

The more time passes the more he wants to ask her if she is going to leave. In fact the question is just on the tip of his tongue when she speaks.

Beth is still staring out over the wall as she whispers, "It's beautiful."

And suddenly Daryl is no longer standing on a platform ten feet off the ground in open air but in a basement that smelled of rot and decay with two corpses beside him. Some form of noise must make it past his lips because suddenly Beth is turning her gaze on him. Her eyes are as wide and blue as ever and Daryl doesn't know if it is his imagination or wishful thinking but he could swear he saw something familiar in her eyes as she whispered,

"Don't you think it's beautiful?"

XxX

The man was looking at her like she was either a ghost or a gift and Beth couldn't help but shift uncomfortably under his gaze. She should't have said anything, shouldn't have started a conversation when she still wasn't even sure what she was doing standing up there with him. Beth met his eyes for a moment before turning her gaze back out to the world.

The view from the platform was breathtaking. The afternoon sun was shining down on the trees that ringed their walls. Far off on the horizon she could just make out the tips of tall buildings and from this distance she could not see all of the rot and decay marring them. There were no walkers making their shambling way towards them and Beth even caught sight of a bird flying through the trees. It was beautiful.

After a moment the man stopped gaping at her and turned his head to face the outside of the walls. Beth watched from the corner of her eye as his face seemed to soften as he took in for what she imagined was the first time the beauty of the world surrounding them. The town behind them seemed to fall silent and for a moment it was as if the only things left in the world were her and this man standing on top of the world

XxX

He wasn't sure how long they continued to stand in silence admiring the view before she spoke again.

"What's," Beth trailed off for a moment as if she was unsure of what she was about to say. Daryl tore his eyes from the world outside of the wall they stood on to look at her. He did not know what fascinated him more; the fact that she was alive beside him or the way that the sunlight shone on her blonde hair. He watched as Beth chewed on her lower lip (a nervous habit he had not yet realized that he had missed) and turned to face him. Her blue eyes were clear and wide as she asked.

"What's your name?"

XxX

The pain the question caused him were evident instantaneously. The corners of his mouth drooped as his hands tightened on the crossbow he held so easily. Beth can't help marveling at the strength he must have to hold the heavy bow aloft, she likely couldn't lift it very high off the ground herself. Above all it was his eyes that showed her how much the question had truly hurt him.

Before, he had been looking at her like she was some irreplaceable thing that he had lost but had somehow managed to come back to him. He was still looking at her like that only now she could finally see the truth sinking in.

His irreplaceable thing had been broken.

She feels a strange mixture of guilt, anger and remorse at his pain. Guilt because she did not like to be the cause of other's misery even when it had been unintentional, anger because she did not enjoy being looked at like she was damaged property., and remorse because she wanted so desperately to know who the man standing beside her was. Who all of them were.

But she didn't and there was nothing she could do to change that except learn.

XxX

Even the air seemed to sting his lungs as he drew a deep breath and turned away from her. Daryl silently cursed himself for being so stupid, he knew that she didn't remember anything why did he not tell her his name the second she had joined him at his post?

Part of it, of course, was that they had all agreed not to tell Beth anything that she didn't ask but Daryl would be lying to himself if he didn't say that part of it also wasn't that he had been holding on to a thin shred of hope that a part of Beth remembered him. At least _some_ part of him.

But it seemed that what Morgan had told them that morning was true, Beth remembered nothing. And if she didn't remember then Daryl was simply going have to remind her.

He had to clear a sudden lodge in his throat before he managed to get his name out. Beth stared at him for a long moment and his heart suddenly began to beat faster at the thought that perhaps hearing his name might have triggered something inside of her, lodged some damaged hidden memory loose.

Beth was still staring at him as she whispered his name back.

"Daryl."

XxX

Beth waited for something to flicker inside of her, waited for the name to shake her memories out of whatever secret place they had gone to. For a long moment her and the man(_Daryl) _simply stared at each other, both of them waiting with bated breath for_ something_ to happen. For some part of herself, her past, to come back to her.

There was only silence.

He must see the lack of recognition in her eyes even with knowing his name for he opens his mouth to speak, perhaps even to ask her if she did remember him. Whatever he was planning on saying Beth suddenly found she could not bear to hear it, not then. So she does the first thing that popped into her mind, the thing you always do when a stranger tells you their name.

"I'm Beth."

Immediately she curses herself for of course he already knew that, that was their whole problem. She turns away from him and waits for him to laugh at her, to make some comment on her mistake but the only noise that reaches them comes from both sides of the fence they stand on: the sound of animals and leaves rustling from the life outside the fence and the soft sound of people living their lives from behind it.

Beth suddenly feels as if she is standing on a boarder straddling two separate worlds. The thought brings her comfort strangely enough, for she herself was caught between two worlds, two Beths. The Beth these people once knew and the Beth that she had become.

She suddenly finds herself wondering if she has a wall settled between the two halves of her self as well. If she would only ever be able to live on one side and never get to stand on the boarder like she is now. Would she only ever get to be one or the other? If she remembered who she was would she lose who she is?

Her temple was beginning to throb when Daryl's voice cut through the panic forming in her mind.

There was still pain heavily evident in his tone but she could also hear something that sounded faintly like relief and wonder. But most of all she hears a convincing edge (and for the life of her she does not know which one of them he is trying to convince) as he whispers, "Yeah. You're Beth."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

He keeps his eyes closed for a long moment when he wakes up, unwilling to surrender himself back to the harshness of reality.

He had dreamed of Beth again, as he so often did, but this time the dream had been a good one. He had dreamed that they had stayed at the funeral home where he first lost her, had stayed there and grown old side by side together. Even as they aged Beth never looked at him like he was unfamiliar, not like she had done the night before when she spoke his name as though it was the first time it had ever touched her lips.

He lay in his bed for a long moment, eyes shut tight as he tried to commit every single detail of his dream to memory. Soon enough the sounds of his housemates filled his ears and Daryl knew his brief respite was over. He had to get up and face the world as it was, to go about his business as if the idea of Beth walking around the town with no idea who anybody was was not killing him.

The day before had been like a surreal dream. She had stood up there on the platform with him almost his entire guard shift, neither of them speaking after their introductions. Daryl simply couldn't find any words to say to her that wouldn't cause her to fall into that state of blind panic he witnessed on that first night, the night he was so convinced she wasn't even real. He knew she was real now, each time he looked at her the less his expectation for her to fade from sight waned.

But the more he accepted that she was really there the more questions he began to have, questions to which he had no way get answers.

He wanted to know what had happened to her, both before she was shot and after. He wanted to pick her brain for any small memory that she might have retained, Morgan did not know the right way to question her without causing her to panic. Did not know how to ask her if she remembered gray prison walls or green farm fields or any small nonsensical memory that might have managed to cling itself inside her brain.

But above all Daryl just wanted to ask her if she was still planning on leaving.

XxX

The morning air held a slight chill to it as Beth sat curled up on the front steps of the house. The sun was just rising and from where she sat she could see it make its slow ascent up over the houses laying before her. There was no one yet out on the streets, no one making their way to jobs or friend's houses. She was all alone out there, her only companion the chirping birds and the rising sun.

And of course, the incessant press of her thoughts.

She had been unable to truly sleep the night before, her mind racing with unanswered questions and crazy plans. Beth kept trying to think of ways to convince herself to ask the people what they knew about her past but every time she tried to think up a way to do it she started to hyperventilate. She spent the majority of the night huddled on the floor of her closet humming in a desperate and futile attempt to block out the sound of her own thoughts.

It did not take very long of that to realize that simply asking people for her memories was not going to work for her. If the very idea of it sent her into that state she highly doubted that actually hearing the memories would go over very well for her. She still wasn't even sure if she wanted to have her memories back, if she was ready to face them or her past self.

There were just so many questions that she wanted answers to, such as how was she shot and separated from this group that called themselves her family? The word still made her heart race in fear but it no longer made her want to rush towards the walls in a desperate attempt to escape it.

The more time that passed the more questions she began to have. (Just who were all of those people? Surely they couldn't _all_ be related to her.) and the more she began to admit to herself that Morgan was right.

She wouldn't find her answers in DC.

But as she lay curled into herself on the floor the night before the thought of leaving had resurfaced many times as a way to escape her panic.

She had agreed to try, for Morgan's sake, for the strangers' sake, hell even for her sake.

But she had never agreed on how long she would try for.

XxX

Carl grinned at him as Daryl slid into the vacant seat at the kitchen table, reaching for a piece of toast(well they called it toast but it was really just plain bread warmed by their fire) even though his stomach was to knotted up with worries to feel actual hunger. Rick and Michonne were watching him closely though, trying to see just how much Beth's return had effected him, how much they should be worried. Daryl knew they all had enough on their plates to worry about without adding himself into the mix so he forced himself to take small bites of the bread even though it tasted like cardboard in his mouth.

"I just can't believe she's back." Carl said as he ripped up a piece of bread into tiny pieces to pass to Judith (who seemed more interested in mushing the bread between her fingers than actually eating it). Daryl had the sense he had walked into a on going conversation but he did not have to guess what they were talking about.

Rick made a small noise of agreement before he tore his eyes from his children to look at Daryl with an all to familiar look of worry and concern. "Yeah, it's been a big shock for all of us." For a moment Daryl wondered if he too could still remember the feel of her blood splattering across his face..

"When do you think we can see her?" Carl asked, trying to hide the hopeful tone in his voice. Daryl remembered then how close they had become at the prison before they started taking in other people, back when Beth was the only person even close to Carl's age.

"She might not want to see us for a while." Michonne said softly as she leaned over to place a piece of bread into Judith's mouth, trying to convince her it was food and not a toy. "She was badly hurt. Might take a while to come back from that."

Daryl began to rip up the piece of bread in his hands, feeling as though her words were directed more towards him than Carl. As he did so he realized Judith might have been onto something, the stuff they made in the kitchens here was better as a stress reliever than actual food.

The four of them sat in near silence for a long moment, the only sounds Judith soft cooing as she played with her food, as they all tried to come to terms with the truth. Beth was there, they could see her and touch her and hear her because she was _alive, _but they couldn't be near her.

Or really, she couldn't be near them.

Daryl suddenly pushed back from the table, the chair scraping loudly against the floor as he stood. The others cast him curious and worried looks but he merely shrugged and muttered something about needing to get to guard duty. Rick opened his mouth to say something, probably to reiterate one of the many things he had said the night before when he cornered Daryl in an attempt to get him to talk about how he was coping with Beth's return. The problem was that Daryl wasn't really coping so Rick had done most of the talking while Daryl listened and tried to believe what the man was saying. (_She might remember us one day Daryl and if she doesn't, well she's still alive. That's something right?)_

Swinging his crossbow over his shoulder Daryl muttered a quick goodbye, knowing from the look on Rick's face they'd likely have another conversation on the matter that night. Swallowing her last bite of toast Michonne stood as well.

"I'll walk with you. We're going on a run into the city today. They want us there early."

Rick and Carl's calls of be careful were met with a nod from Michonne as the duo walked out the door into the cold morning air.

XxX

Morgan had offered to walk her to the small make shift clinic before he headed to work on the construction crew but Beth had politely refused him. If she did decide to stay in the town she would need to know how to find her way around it so she might as well start on that today. He gave her very clear directions before he headed off towards the gate, the crew he was on was working on expanding the area that the wall contained but to do that they first had to length the wall itself. Morgan told her it was hard work but it would be worth it when they got to open the community up more.

More people were coming out onto the streets as Beth made her way to the the building they used as a doctor's office. Morgan had convinced her she needed to go to make sure the illness she had arrived with was in fact gone and that if she was planning on staying here (_was she?_) then she should probably meet up with the doctor every now and then to make sure her 'side effects' from the bullet wound weren't getting any worse.

It seemed so strange to think of them as side effects, to liken them to getting nauseous after taking a certain medication, but Beth could think of no other way to describe the lingering problems her wound had given her. While she had regained full use of the fingers of her left hand she still felt nothing in them. She could now feel the pressure when she touched something with them but she could not tell if it was cold or hot, rough or smooth. The black spots in her left eye had not improved at all since she had woken up in the hospital but she was just thankful that they hadn't gotten any worse. The loss of her memory was of course her biggest problem and the hardest thing to try to 'fix'.

But all in all her side effects were nothing compared to what could have happened to her. After all what was memory loss when compared to being dead?

XxX

Daryl found himself grateful that Michonne did not press him as they walked down the street together. Neither of them were big conversationalist and they had learned early on in their friendship that they only needed to speak when something had to be said, they did not need to fill the empty air around them with words.

She too had spoken to him the night before when he had returned wide eyed and confused after his guard shift. She had told him she had seen Beth standing up on the platform with him and just wanted to make sure that they were both doing okay. Perhaps it was because he trusted her or perhaps it was because he had been so shook up by all of that he would haven spoken to anyone about it but for once Daryl hadn't lied.

He had told her about how they didn't really speak except when Beth had asked about his name (he didn't tell her about Beth telling him that the view from the platform was beautiful, just like Beth Michonne would not have understood the full meaning of that exchange). Daryl didn't even bother to hide how much it had hurt him when Beth asked him for his name, how even though he had known she didn't remember him, knowing it and being so obviously reminded of it were two vastly different things.

Michonne had sat and listened, did not press him to tell her more then the few quick sentences he gave her or try to invalidate his feelings with platitudes that it would be okay. She just let him hurt but Daryl was grateful for it. He didn't need people to keep telling him to be glad that Beth was alive, because of course he was glad, he was over joyed with the knowledge. He just needed someone besides himself and Rick to acknowledge with him the fact that most of them seemed to find harder to believe than Beth surviving the gunshot wound to the head.

She didn't know who they were.

XxX

She had not been walking long before she saw a familiar form walking in her direction. Two familiar forms she realized after a moment as she recognized the woman walking beside Daryl to be one of the people who she had seen briefly the other night. They were walking in her direction and Beth felt a flare of panic at the thought. For a moment she considered turning and running back to her house but she forced herself to stay where she was.

She had agreed to try after all and turning and running was not trying. Besides Morgan was right, she did not run from the things that scared her. That first night had been a moment of weakness but one could not afford to be weak anymore. Not in this world.

With that thought in mind Beth straightened her shoulders and headed for the pair.

XxX

They walked in companionable silence down the streets that were slowly filling with people but as they turned a corner a soft nudge on his arm caused Daryl to glance over at Michonne, following her gaze to a familiar petite blonde girl who was walking straight towards them.

Daryl's breath hitched in his throat and he felt a flare of panic as he realized that he was unsure of what to do it this situation. Beth had sought him out the day before, did that mean he could say hello to her without fear of scaring her? Should he walk by like he did not know her, but how could he ever do that? He did know her it was her that didn't remember.

Thankfully the choice was made for him as Beth, who looked ready to turn around and run in the other direction at a moment's notice, slowly stopped in front of them. She dug the toe of her boot nervously into the ground as she cast a nervous look between the two of them.

"Hi." Beth swallowed hard as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "Daryl."

Hearing his name come from her mouth felt like feeling the sun on his skin after spending weeks in a downpour. Perhaps it was that blissful nearly drunken feeling fueling him that gave him the courage to speak her name aloud too. "Hey Beth."

They stood staring at each other for a moment, blue eyes locked on blue, before her gaze flickered to Michonne briefly. Daryl was unsure if telling Beth her name went against their rule of only telling her what she asked but he figured that since she had already asked him for his name that it wouldn't hurt her to tell her one more.

"This is Michonne." he said quickly, watching Beth's face closely for any flicker of recognition.

Just as he had been dreading, there was nothing.

XxX

_Michonne._

Beth quickly committed the name to memory as she stared at the woman's serious face trying to get either one to spark something in her mind. Nothing came, not that she had been expecting it to.

Silently she promised herself that if nothing else she would learn their names. Even if she did end up leaving Beth would still learn the names of all the people who had once knew her. That way she would at least have that, even if she could not connect anything else to it besides their knowing that would help her begin to make sense of how they were all her family.

But Beth couldn't handle much more at the moment besides hearing a name. She muttered a quick hello to the woman before scooting around the pair (_Michonne and Daryl, _she reminded herself forcefully) and heading off in the direction of the clinic. Just before she turned the corner she cast a quick look over her shoulder not the slightest bit surprised when her eyes locked onto Daryl's, who was watching her walk away with a strange look of pain and something else that she couldn't quite place in his eyes.

XxX

"She knows our names now Daryl. That's progress." Michonne's voice caused Daryl to tear his eyes from Beth's and look back at her. The ghost of a smile crossed her face as she reassured him. "That's a good thing."

After a moment's pause Daryl nodded in agreement.

She was right of course, it _was_ a good thing. So was the fact that as far as he could tell Beth hadn't panicked upon hearing Michonne's name, she also hadn't looked nearly half as frightened as she had the first night she returned to their lives. She now knew two of their groups name, it was more than she had come into the town knowing.

Now Daryl just had to hope she would stick around long enough to learn anything else.

XxX

The doctor who sees her is a sweet woman with bright red hair named Denise Cloyd. It was not the same doctor who she had met very briefly in her feverish haze upon arrival and Beth finds herself glad. She could not recall much about the man but she remembered finding his bedside manner to be rather harsh.

Denise takes Beth temperature and checks her vitals in a methodical routine approach that leads Beth to believe she had been a doctor for a long time. Soon they come to an agreement that the illness that had been plaguing Beth when she arrived had officially run its course. All to soon Denise began to ask Beth careful questions about her injury, running her fingers lightly over the entry and exit wound the bullet left after quietly asking Beth for permission.

"The doctor who saved you did marvelous work." the doctor whispered, seeming to be speaking more to herself than Beth. She dropped her fingers away from Beth's face and smiled softly at her. "Although I think you mostly just got lucky. Now why don't we check on your vision?"

Beth did not need to take the series of tests Denise put her through (holding a spoon over her good eye and reading letters off a chart across the room and looking at pictures with different colored numbers hidden inside them) to know that the vision in her left eye had not improved. She was grateful just to be able to see out of it at all. Like Denise had said, she was lucky.

The doctor was in the middle of pricking the fingers of Beth's left hand with a pin when there was a loud crash from outside the doors. Denise let out a yelp and turned to run towards the door of the room as the sound of people calling for a doctor filled the small clinic.

Beth didn't know if it was the sound of the injured person moaning or the sight of a drop of blood forming on her finger from a wound she couldn't feel that sent her running out of the room after Denise.

XxX

Michonne and him had parted ways without another word, her to the cars the runners were loading up and him to his post on the gate. For the longest time her words kept bouncing around inside of head, _it'__s progress. _Not only did Beth now know two of their group's names but she had not seemed frightened to hear it, her breathing hadn't even noticeably sped up like it seemed to do when she was scared or panicked.

Plus, she was the one who had stopped to say hello to them that had to mean something right?

That was twice now that Beth had sought him out. He did not count that first night, the night he found her singing and they clung to each other's hands. He was the one who had found her that night, even if he had spent the majority of it thinking that she wasn't real.

But Beth was the one who came to him yesterday and she was the one who had stopped to speak to him today. As far as he knew she had yet to seek out the company of any of the others. So why was she comfortable with coming to him?

XxX

There was blood everywhere.

The injured party was a middle aged man with a gaping wound down his arm. The first question out of Denise's mouth was if it was bite and upon the reassurance from the others with him that it wasn't she sprung into action. People offered to fetch the other two doctors that lived in the town but Denise refused, her hands already cleansed and gloved as she press a clean towel against the man's arm. A few people that Beth took to be others who worked for the clinic bustled around them, fetching whatever Denise called out for as she tried to stop the blood flowing from the man's wound.

It seemed that there had been an incident with a window on one of the runs. The doctor made a comment about them being lucky that they got the man to her in time. Beth wondered if she thought everyone was lucky, but perhaps they all simply were. They were all still alive after all.

And perhaps it was mentioning luck again or perhaps she had simply caught sight of Beth standing in the corner of the room, unsure of exactly what she was still doing there, but suddenly Denise was calling out her name and gesturing to the sink in the corner.

"Wash up! I need you to hold this in place for me."

Beth moved quickly, darting around the others as they hurried around the room. Hands clean she took over holding the towel over the groaning man's forearm as Denise began to ready the supplies for stitches. As she held the towel as tightly to the wound as she could Beth felt the man's blood warm on her hands. Surprisingly the feeling of it did not repel her or send her into a panic.

Instead she found herself whispering to the man that it would be okay, letting him cling to her hand as the doctor began to stitch up his forearm.

XxX

Eventually Daryl stopped wondering what it was that made Beth come to him instead of any of the others, instead of her sister or Carl, both of whom she had been closer to than him. Or at least she had been before they had fled from the prison. After that Daryl didn't know who Beth would say she was the closest to. But of course now, neither did she.

That line of thought only ever caused him pain so Daryl tried to distract himself, tried to focus on making sure the area below him was clear. But it didn't take very long for his thoughts to drift back to Beth.

Regardless of the reason Beth felt comfortable enough to come to him, to seek his company instead of anyone else's. Did that mean if he wanted to he could go to her too?

XxX

"Well he lost a lot of blood but he'll survive." Denise sighed in relief as she pushed a loose lock of hair back from her face, a small streak of blood smearing across her forehead. "Might have to send Carol out to find someone with his blood type though."

Beth looked down at the man where he lay in the small bed, his face pale but not as twisted in pain as it was when he first arrived. Once the stitches had been placed in his arm Denise had given the man some painkillers and the drugs had helped to ease the pain enough for the man to drift into a fitful sleep.

The older woman motioned for Beth to leave the room so she did, heading down the hallway for the front door now that she was no longer needed. The sound of footsteps behind her showed her that, to her surprise, Denise was walking out after her. She followed Beth out onto the small front porch where they both sucked in the fresh air which seemed almost sweet after the heavy smell of blood and antiseptic in the clinic.

"You did good in there." Beth glanced over at Denise, surprised to see the doctor watching her apprasingly, her eyes curious from behind her glasses as she spoke. "You get your job assignment yet?"

She must have seen the look of puzzlement in Beth's eyes because she elaborated. "Everyone here has a job to do. We don't just get to stay here for free." she gave a small smile as Beth began to rub the scar on her wrist, her hands folded behind her back to hide them as something in Denise's words made her head start to hurt. "You get your job yet?"

Beth had been filled with to many worries to even think about what job assignment she might get. She remembered Morgan talking to her about it in the first few days they had been there but she had still been to sick to work. No one had given her a job yet, although she had met with the leader of the community, Douglas the same day that she had agreed to go to the dinner with Morgan's friend. She supposed after the shock she had gone through that night Morgan had managed to convince the leader to hold off on giving her an assignment.

But if she was just going to decide to leave should she even start any job at all?

XxX

It was lucky his section of the fence wasn't seeing to many walkers the past few days because Daryl's mind was as far from guard duty as it could be. His thoughts had always been preoccupied with Beth but now it was as though he could focus on nothing else.

He spent the whole day trying to think up ways to pick at her memory, asking her about small things that would seem unimportant to anyone else so that no one would guess what he was doing, not even Beth. It had been his idea after all, not to try to jog Beth's memory, and he still stood by that. He would never ask her flat out if she remembered something, never even offer her information she didn't want. He never wanted to be the cause of the fear and blind panic he had seen in her behind that shed. He just wanted to know if anything stood out to her, that if he casually mentioned moonshine did she remember the way it burned so badly in her throat it made her eyes water?

By the time he left the wall though he had talked himself out of it, it was simply to risky of an idea. All it would likely do was cause her panic or make her scared to be near him. And even if Beth never caught on to what he was doing, if she never noticed the way he would ask her strangely pointed questions and then hold his breath while she answered, all it would likely ever do was cause him pain.

And that was all hoping that she stuck around long enough for him to talk to her again.

XxX

"Most people can't handle the blood that we deal with in here. Its not like before, not just colds and the occasional injury. I've had to amputate a bitten arm before." Denise's eyes closed briefly against the images she was likely seeing and for a moment Beth felt the gentle tug of a memory but Denise spoke again and drew her mind back to the present. "You didn't flinch at that man's wound. I think you'd be a good addition to our team here."

Beth's breath hitched at that. She had never been part of a team before. At the hospital she had been more of a burden, even once she could do odd jobs to help out she could see it in far to many people's eyes the truth that they wished she would have just died with that bullet. Her and Morgan were partners and even friends, but he was capable of taking care of himself and he did not really _need_ her. No what Denise was offering her was something that she had never had before.

She could help people, she could be needed. But was that enough reason to stay here? Here in this walled in town she could be a part of a team and she could work on getting her memories back. With time she could even get to know the people that called her family.

Denise's voice is gentle as she whispers, "You are planning on staying aren't you?"

But it is not the thrill of being needed or the idea of learning about her past that causes her answer. No, it is the sight of a man walking down the street, his dark hair tousled from the wind and that heavy looking crossbow slung across his back. As he comes closer their eyes meet and maybe they weren't familiar to her from before but they were starting to be familiar to her now. Either way, it was him that had her whispering to Denise.

"Maybe I could stick around for a little while."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

A heavy rain was falling as Daryl eased the front door shut behind him. He welcomed the rain, it brought nothing but good things in his mind. Thankfully the town had traps set up to catch the water, even though they did have running water due to the original set up of the town. Daryl had never thought that he would be grateful for anything the government did but here he was, living in a town that they had built to withstand disasters.

He just didn't think this was the kind of thing they'd had in mind.

He headed down the streets, the rain falling on him as he walked slowly to his post, his calm gait out of place as people pushed past him in a rush in an attempt to make it to their destinations without getting their clothes drenched. Daryl didn't bother with the fuss, he was going to be standing outside for hours with no protection, no point trying to delay the inevitable.

A flash of yellow caught his eye then and his gaze was suddenly glued to the back of a jean jacket, blonde ponytail streaming out behind it. His heart hammered in his chest as he watched Beth rush up the steps to the clinic, shaking her jacket to dispose of some of the rain drops as she stood under the small porch awning. Daryl swallowed hard as he watched Beth slip inside the door.

She had gone to the clinic yesterday, was there a problem? Was she sick? Daryl forced himself to calm down and shove his worries to the back of his mind. Part of him wanted to rush after her and check on Beth himself but Daryl knew that was not an option. That action would likely terrify Beth and he did not want to erase any progress the two of them had made by freaking out over what could very well be nothing.

Silently he promised himself that the moment his guard shift was over he would find Carol and demand that she tell him what was so wrong with Beth that she had to go to the clinic two days in a row. She could think of that what she would, he simply needed to know.

For him and for Maggie.

XxX

"Looks like it's starting to come down out there." Denise remarked casually as Beth slipped out of her jacket, hanging it on the coat rack by the door and watching as water dripped off of it to puddle on the floor. "Come meet everyone."

Beth followed the doctor slowly, her hands starting to shake slightly with nerves. Coming back to the clinic that morning had not frightened her, in fact she had barely slept as excited as she was with the prospect of helping other people, but she had not yet thought about the fact that she might have to meet others. That she would have to be introduced to the other people who worked there and to the patients that came through. Beth managed to shove her fears aside as she followed Denise into the front room of the house, listening to her carefully in the hopes that it would calm down her rapid heartbeat.

"Beside me there are two other trained doctors, Neal who works nights." Beth nodded, remembering the dark haired man who saw to her illness when she first arrived. She sincerely hoped that he was always working nights and taking care of whatever odd injuries (she supposed it was for late returning run teams or people arriving such as her and Morgan, perhaps even the odd illness) that came up so that she would not have to see him very often. "And Peter. He should be here later." Denise glanced down at her wrist where Beth was surprised to find a watch strapped.

She had long since forgotten even the notion of time.

The watch, more than anything else, made Beth accept that this little walled in town was actually safe.

Besides the doctors and Beth herself there were three other people who worked in the clinic. Lisa, a middle aged woman with a sweet and easy smile who shook Beth's hand like she was fighting down the urge to hug her. James, who was closer to her age, although still a little older, and who grinned at her in a way that made her think he was used to girls blushing at. Denise told her there was another woman who worked there as well, Carol, who would be there later that morning.

Beth personally thought that they had a lot of people working there for such a small community but as Denise began to give her the tour of the small building she began to realize that they did more there than she had thought.

The building had been someone's home before the turn but they had managed to refurbish it for their uses quite well. The three bedrooms housed patients who needed longer care, the man from the day before was sleeping in one of them but the other two were currently empty. The bathroom seemed to be unchanged and the kitchen had remained mostly the same although one counter had become home to several stocks of medical supplies. The front room had been turned into the main center of work there and by the time Denise had finished giving her the tour Lisa was already seeing a patient, another person sitting in a chair in the corner and clutching a blood soaked rag to their finger. James had already been sent home for it seemed everyone in the town got one day off a week and Denise had asked him to come in on his his just to meet Beth.

As she made her way to the man bleeding in the corner Beth began to realize why they needed so many staff. It seemed everyone was always getting hurt in this town.

XxX

The rain had another bonus to it, it seemed to mask their scent from the walkers. Daryl had been standing up there for at least an hour, if not more, judging from the wetness of his clothes. In that time he had yet to see a single thing move in the space between the wall and the treeline roughly thirty feet away. The rain impaired his vision enough so that he could not see if there was anything hidden in the trees but as time passed with no movement he finally let himself think about what had happened yesterday.

_When he had gotten home the night before all he wanted to do was sleep. He didn't know what was causing the exhausted pull on his eyelids although he suspected it had something to do with the little and restless slumber he had managed to catch since Beth had returned and honestly for a long time before that. So he had frozen in surprise when he had flung open the door to his bedroom and found someone sitting on the corner of his bed and preventing him from falling face first on it like he had wanted._

_Maggie had looked up at him with a start at the sound of the door opening and Daryl found himself horrified when he realized that her eyes were red rimmed. It was not that he had never seen Maggie cry before, he had been there after all when both her father and Beth had died, even if Beth was still alive they hadn't known that then. But Daryl had never been good around crying women, or anyone crying really. And this time was different. Daryl did not know the cause of these tears nor did he have any idea as to why she was sitting in his room and preventing him from sleep._

_"Hey." she whispered, clearing her throat at the rough edge to her voice. Daryl has a sudden flash of panic that she wanted to talk to him about Glenn, that for some unknowable reason she had decided to seek him out for relationship advice. Daryl took a step backwards, about to flee from his own room, when her quiet voice filled his ears again.,_

_"I wanted to talk to you about Beth."_

XxX

After seeing to the two minor injuries Denise was explaining the duties Beth would be expected to perform (they were fairly basic things such as helping people with simple cuts and bruises, keeping the clinic clean, and assisting the doctors whenever they needed) when the front door opened again.

"I checked in on Tom like you asked. His leg is healing just fine. Should be able to walk on it in another day or two." Beth turned to look over her shoulder, catching sight of the speaker standing in the doorway. An older woman, with close cropped gray hair and a serious looking face. The amount of water dripping off her clothes told Beth that the weather outside was only worsening. The woman purposely kept her eyes glued to Denise's face, not even sparing Beth a glance. She could see the rapid rise and fall of the woman's chest but her words were not coming out rushed so she knew that she hadn't run there. Beth was still pondering over the cause of the woman's distress when Denise stood.

"Wonderful news. Thank you for stopping in to see him." the woman in the doorway nodded, turning on her heels to walk away when Denise spoke. "Oh! Carol this is Beth. Beth this is Carol."

Beth rose to her feet quickly, extending her hand on a sudden whim for the woman to shake. She turned back to face Beth slowly, her eyes shutting for the briefest moment before she took Beth's hand.

The second their hands touched Beth knew, she could feel it in the grip the woman (_Carol) _clung to her with and she could see it in her wide eyes and the brief flash of pain that crossed her face.

This was not the first time they had met.

XxX

His eyelids feel heavy already and he is not sure if it was because of how he has to squint to see through the sheet of rain falling or if it was because of the very little amount of sleep he had managed to catch after Maggie had left him. It seemed the Greene girls were good at preventing him from getting any sleep.

_Daryl looked at Maggie for a long moment, sitting on his bed with her hands twisting in her lap and her red rimmed eyes staring at him pleadingly, before he crossed back over the threshold into his room. He leaned against the door frame, partially because he didn't want to sit next to her on the bed in fear that she would take it as an invitation to cry on him, but mostly because he feels in control here. Knows that when he wants to leave he can do so without a problem._

_Neither of them spoke for several minutes, Daryl because he was unsure as to why Maggie was seeking him out and Maggie because she seemed to need to gather her thoughts. He tried to resit glaring at her for stealing his bed and invading his room when all he wanted was to sleep but the longer they sat there in silence the more his annoyance grew._

_"I just, I hadn't realized how close you two had gotten." she finally admitted, shrugging as she looked down at her hands. "After the prison I mean." she took a deep breath and Daryl shifted uncomfortably, feeling strangely like Maggie was about to give him one of those protective sister talks he had never wanted to be a part of._

_"I guess I'm not that surprised." she continued, looking up at him with her brow crinkled. "Sasha, Bob and I grew closer as well." Her voice choked on Bob's name and Daryl looked down at his boots while he himself felt a flare of grief for the man who's last moments he had missed. But he did not regret it, choosing to go after that car with Carol, and somehow Daryl knew that Bob understood. He would rather have forfeited his goodbyes to both of them if it meant finding Beth. And it had, even though for a long time Daryl thought he had lost Beth too._

_"But you and Beth, you didn't get close like we did." a subtle change in her voice caused Daryl to look over at her again, surprised to find her eyes searching his face for something as she continued, "You two got closer in a different way."_

XxX

She barely has enough time to rush out an 'excuse me' before she dropped the woman's hand and raced down the hallway as quickly as she could without running. She shut herself into the tiny hallway bathroom, sinking down onto the closed lid of the toilet to rest her head in her hands as she tried to catch her breath.

She hadn't meant to panic, truly. She had just been caught so off guard. She had expected it with the woman she met yesterday, with Michonne, she had known by the easy way they were walking together that Daryl knew her too. That alone had made her think that the woman knew her as well and she had been proved right with the way that Michonne looked at her. This was the first time since that first night she had been near these people that someone from her _before_ had met her without warning.

Beth couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed by it all. As she sat there in the darkness of the bathroom she began to realize the cause of the other woman's, of Carol's, panicked breathing. She had looked to be just as scared as Beth in that moment.

The thought gave her pause, allowed her to raise her head and take deep breath. She prodded the thought with childlike curiosity and let it sink in.

Maybe all the strangers were as scared to be around this new her as she was to be around them.

XxX

_He's not entirely sure what Maggie is accusing him of but he can tell that there is something. He crossed his arms over his chest and pushed off of the door frame while he glared at her. She didn't cower at his glare, not that he would expect her too with as many times as she had seen it, but her brow did wrinkle in confusion._

_A feeling that was both familiar and foreign washes over him and it took him longer than it should have to realize that it was anger. He had once lived on anger, thrived on it really. His only way to survive was to push everyone away but that had been before Beth. After Beth, there hadn't been enough left in him to feel anger but the feeling was coursing through him red hot at that moment._

_"What're ya tryin' to say?" he finally bit out, confused himself over what he needed to be angry about. What exactly did Maggie think had happened out there between him and Beth? He knew what had happened between them, she had taken his broken pieces and glued them back together, using pieces of herself to fill in the missing gaps. She had taken his shattered shell and remade him into something almost whole before she was ripped from him. But Daryl did not think that was what Maggie was accusing him of._

_"I never touched her!" he finally bit out, his brows lowering as his glare intensified. Even as the words were leaving his mouth he knew they weren't true, because of course he had touched Beth. How many times did he brush her arm for the simple need to touch her and reassure himself that she was okay? Daryl **had** touched her, just not in the way Maggie had to be thinking._

_He touched Beth is serious piggybacks and fingers interlocked in shared grief. He had carried her for the simple pleasure of getting to hold her, to see her face when she saw the meal he had prepared for them. But those touches had all been clean, no ulterior motive in them. Daryl had never once even thought about darkening her pure skin with his dirty Dixon hands._

_A rage was beginning to build inside of him, the exact reason to which he was unsure of. Perhaps it was Maggie's accusation, or his lack or sleep, but Daryl knew it was most likely his memory bringing up things that Beth might never remember for herself. Memories that were once all he thought he would have to hold onto her. Now she was there but he could no more hold her than he could a memory._

_The shake of Maggie's head finally managed to break through his rage and he frowned at her, opening his mouth to defend himself and Beth some more when Maggie spoke in a rush._

_"I'm not accusing you of anythin'. I'm sorry, I was just tryin' to say." she paused, biting her lip as she thought of a way to phrase her question without pushing him over into his pit of rage. "I was just tryin' to say that I'm surprised you're the only person she remembers."_

XxX

It takes her a few minutes to leave her sanctuary in the bathroom but it does not take her nearly as long as it might have had she not considered the possibility of the strangers being afraid. The thought calmed her strangely enough, the idea that they were all scared. That more than anything else made her feel less alone in all of this. She hadn't thought about it before, not really, about how hard this had to be for everyone else.

She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have someone you thought was dead (no one had told her that but she could see it in their eyes when they looked at her, had heard it in the brunette's voice as she whispered 'You're alive'. Whatever had happened to her, however she had gotten separated from them, they had truly believed her to be dead.) return to you alive but with no idea who you were.

Beth could not imagine the joy and pain that had to cause them but that was mostly because she could not imagine caring about someone as much as these people seemed to care for her.

XxX

He shot down one walker, pleased to find that his aim was not too impaired by the weather. It had only taken him one arrow although the walker had honestly gotten a lot closer to the fence than he would have liked before he could shoot it. He knew he would hear about it later, when the rain let up at they sent people out to clean out the bodies of the walkers surrounding the fence before they started to smell. Daryl told himself it was only the rain affecting his skills and not the thoughts running wild in his head.

_Daryl simply blinked at her before shaking his head. Maggie was confused, she didn't get or she wasn't willing to except the fact that the Beth they knew was gone, at least for the time being. Her face when she whispered his name for what she thought was the first time, when the sound of it brought no memories to her, filled his mind as he spoke._

_"She don't remember me. Or any of us." he grunted leaning, well more like falling, back against the door frame as the reminder of her memory loss hit him like a physical thing._

_Maggie was shaking her head again and Daryl found himself wondering if she got a crick her neck from doing that so often. "I know she doesn't really remember us Daryl, I know that." she paused to take a deep breath, her eyes closing in a flash of pain that Daryl understood all to well before she continued. "I don't even think she realizes that she's doing it but she is. Some part of her remembers you Daryl."_

_He opened his mouth, intent to shoot the idea down before it could take place in his mind and give him hope. But Maggie was speaking again and her words cut him off mid protest._

_"You're the only one of us that she's talked to since she got here."_

XxX

She does not speak to Carol again for the rest of the day although they work around each other like they are partners in a strange dance that the other one has forgotten the steps to. It takes the entire morning for Beth to work up the courage to look at the woman's face again and then she spends the remainder of the afternoon quietly searching the stranger's face for any sign of her own features.

She could see no part of herself hidden in the other woman's face and it does not take very long for Beth to admit defeat. Morgan had told her that these people were her family but what that meant did not seem to be what Beth had first thought. These people did not seem to be related to her by blood, at least not the ones she had met so far. She saw nothing of herself in them although they all seemed to look at her like they could see parts of themselves in her.

As the day passed in a blur of patients with head colds and simple cuts Beth began to wonder if each new patient was going to look at her with those eyes, those "You're here but you're broken." eyes that she had already begun to feel accustomed to. Since her 'family' clearly did not mean her blood she had no idea of how large it could be. Her panic that first night had erased most of the faces from her mind as well as making her unsure of the actual number of people who had been there. Her memory had conjured up shadowy black figures to stand in the corner that made the amount of people in that room seem endless.

Beth had no idea how many there were, how many strangers who she had once called family still wandered these streets with her. How many more people she would have to be introduced to for the first and yet second time.

XxX

_He was shaking his head before she was even done speaking. "Michonne was with me this mornin'" he grunted, crossing his arms tighter to his chest as if he could battle off Maggie's words. As if he could prevent them from taking root and springing up hope inside of him._

_But Maggie was simply looking at him, green eyes wide, and for the first time in a long while he sees something in them that resembles Beth. The second she begins speaking he knows the thing he saw was stubbornness._

_"I saw Michonne earlier. She said it seemed more like Beth wanted to talk to you and she just happened to be there too."_

_Daryl just kept shaking his head, he could not let himself hope that some part of Beth, no matter how small, remembered him. That hope would only hurt him in the end, when it proved to be wrong or when he woke up and found out that she had left. That she had gone on and left him again with no warning._

When his replacement finally showed Daryl barely spared them a grunt before climbing down the ladder in a rush. He knew they would think nothing of his rudeness, it was his usual attitude and even if it wasn't they would chalk it up to the rain. He shoved his freezing hands into his pockets not at all surprised when it didn't warm them in the slightest. All he wanted was to go home and change out of the wet clothes that were clinging to him but he knew he had to make a stop before he did that. His feet began to walk in the familiar path to the clinic as he replayed the last of his conversation with Maggie the night before in his mind.

_"I don't know how she survived." Maggie's voice had dropped to a whisper and when Daryl looked back at her he saw that she was staring down at her hands again, seeming to be talking more to herself than him as she continued. "I dunno if I still believe in God or miracles but I just don't see how else she could be here."_

_Daryl had nothing to say to that, unsure as he was himself as to how Beth had survived, but it did not matter because Maggie was not finished. "I know why she doesn't remember though. If there is a God and he kept her alive, her not knowing me, that's my punishment."_

_He says nothing and Maggie does not elaborate as she sniffs and rubs a hand underneath her eyes. He knew of course, what Maggie had thought after the prison, how she had thought Beth hadn't even made it out past the fences. He had overheard the others talk about the signs she had left for Glenn, the signs of which Beth's name was noticeably absent. He had heard in Maggie's own voice how much she had given up on Beth when she whispered though the darkness of that train car, "But she's alive?" Daryl had known when he got back to the church with Noah, with Beth's location known and a plan forming to save her and found that Maggie wasn't there that the guilt of going to DC was going to eat her alive when she finally met up with her baby sister._

_And then she hadn't even gotten to see Beth, not alive. _

_Daryl never mentioned the things she had done to her, the ways Maggie had wronged her sister with her lack of faith in her. He had not bothered to tell Maggie that she had been wrong to give up on Beth or that if she hadn't gone to DC maybe Beth would still be alive. He knew as well as everyone else that those thoughts were all that crossed Maggie's mind._

_Daryl was never good at comforting people so he simply stood in the doorway as Maggie sniffled. He knew nothing he said would ease her guilt, hell he didn't even want to try mostly. She** had** given up on Beth after all, she deserved to feel guilty._

_But he felt guilty to. Guilty with the knowledge that if he had just stopped Beth, prevented her from stepping towards that damn cop maybe none of this would've happened. If he had never let her get taken from him in the first place then maybe everything would be different._

_Maybe if him and Maggie had both done better by her Beth would still be with them and know who they were._

XxX

She said her goodbyes quickly before donning her now dry jacket and slipping out the door. The rain had lightened marginally and Beth felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips as she breathed in the fresh air. The smell of rain filled her nostrils and she couldn't help the grin that blossomed over her face as she darted down the steps, spinning in a slow circle as the ran fell on her face.

She felt like her worries were simply washing off of her as the rain fell, all the fear and confusion of the past few days just sliding off her with the water as she spun. Beth could have stayed out there for hours if a gruff and increasingly familiar voice had not cut through her reverie.

"What the hell are ya doin'?

XxX

Beth nearly stumbled as she stopped her spinning, her arms dropping to her sides as she looked over at him. Water was dripping down her face like tears but she looked calmer than he had seen her since her return as she shrugged sheepishly at him.

Daryl was having a hard time fighting down his surprise at seeing her. He had walked to the clinic in the hopes of catching Carol before she left and getting her to tell him what was so wrong with Beth that she had to come in two days in a row. He had not expected to see Beth herself, especially not spinning around in circles in the rain like it was the best thing she had ever done.

"Thought you were sick." Daryl tried very hard not to make it sound like a question, to make him seem just vaguely interested and not as intensely curious as he was. He couldn't help it, he needed to know that she was okay. He had gone so long without her, with thinking she was lost to him forever, that now that she was back he wanted to protect her from everything. Even though he knew full well that Beth Greene was plenty capable of taking care of herself.

Still, he just needed to know that she was okay because he simply needed to and because he had told the sister that she didn't remember that he would.

_Maggie had been staring at her hands and sniveling for so long that Daryl was beginning to suspect she had forgotten where she was. Finally he could take it no longer, the sight of his waiting bed and the soft sound of her crying to much for him._

_"What'dya want Maggie?" he finally bit out, trying to keep his voice from being to gruff but knowing from the tightening of her shoulders that he had failed._

_"Beth." Maggie let out a sigh so long that Daryl was surprised there was still oxygen left in her to continue, "She doesn't want to see me. Might not want to see me for a long time. And that's okay, I'll-I'll deal with that." She swallowed hard before looking up at him and as their eyes met Daryl saw that familiar flash of unrelentless Greene in her. "But I can't deal with not knowing how she's doing. When you talk to her, can you just make sure she's okay?"_

_They stared at each other for a long moment before Daryl nodded slowly. He knew that was his chance to tell Maggie about how Beth was thinking about leaving but Maggie simply thanked him before fleeing the room and he didn't have the chance. He wasn't sure if he would have told her anyway. __ His protective streak for Beth protected her from a lot of things, including her own sister, who Daryl knew without a doubt would go rushing off to find Beth if she had even a inkling that Beth was thinking about leaving._

_Which was precisely why Daryl didn't tell her. _

XxX

He is still staring at her with those piercing blue eyes and Beth gets the feeling that her face is more familiar to him than it is to her if he always looks at her like that. "I'm not sick." she finally whispered, clearing her throat to get it to return to normal speaking volume as she continued. "I'm working here now." she managed the smallest of smiles for him, for herself in the pride that she was useful and that she worked somewhere that contributed to the group.

Daryl is looking at her intently, and she feels her smile begin to falter under his scrutinizing gaze, unsure of what seemed to be bothering him, when suddenly he was whispering in that rough voice of his.

"You're not leavin' then?"

XxX

Beth's eyes have widened in shock but Daryl couldn't tell who was honestly more surprised by his question, her or him. He had not meant to ask it, really. Sure the question had been plaguing him since he had overheard Morgan saying it to Rick but he had not meant to ask Beth that.

He had meant to tell her that he was not surprised that she was working in the clinic, he knew her father had taught her a lot of things. He had seen her clean up people's scrapes when the other medical trained people at the prison were to busy. His plan had been to corner Morgan later that evening, force the man to tell him how Beth was really doing, to ask if she still wanted to flee and if she was still scared of him, of them.

Instead he had let the sight of her spinning around in the rain with a smile intoxicate him and had gone and blurted out the question to her. His hands curl into fists at his sides as he waits for her to panic, or yell or run away. That's what scares him the most, he was beginning to realize, he had no idea how Beth reacted to anything anymore.

So he was surprised when Beth simply tilted her head to the side, watching him in a way that was both new and entirely familiar as she answered him, "I'm gonna stay."

XxX

She had meant to continue, to clarify that she was only thinking of staying for a little while. For just long enough to justify to herself that she had given this whole family thing a chance but the look of instantaneous relief on Daryl's face stopped her. They simply stood there, the weight of her words sinking into them like a promise she had not fully intended to make as the rain fell on and around them. Beth did not know how long they would have stood there, their eyes locked as they tried to see something familiar in each other before the clinic's door slammed closed behind them.

Beth started at the sound, looking over her shoulder quickly to see Carol standing uncertainly on the porch steps as she watched them. Suddenly Beth felt the cold of the water that drenched her skin and the heaviness of her soaked clothes. The sudden desire to be dry filled her as she took a small step back from Daryl who was still watching her. She turned from him with a quickly whispered goodbye but she had not gone more than a step before she was turning around, squinting her eyes to make out his features in the rain.

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

The question came out small and filled with doubt, as though she was the one who was afraid that the other one would leave. She had not known Morgan had told anyone about how close she came to leaving but she could see how much the knowledge of that fact had been bothering the man before her. It could have been a trick of the rain but Beth could swear she saw the smallest ghost of a smile as he returned the words, "See ya tomorrow."

Somehow when he said it it didn't sound like a question but like a promise.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_The hand holding hers was clenching her so tightly she could feel her bones grinding together. There was blood everywhere and the cold night air was filled with the sounds of screams, gutteral growls, and a wet crunching sound as the walkers devoured the person clinging to her. _

Beth woke with a start, a scream of her own nearly slipping out past her lips as she sat straight up in bed. Her breath came out in frantic bursts and she rose her palms to push her sweaty hair off her forehead, taking large gulps of air and flexing her hand as if she could still feel the woman in her dream clutching it.

She was still shaking by the time both her breathing and heart rate finally returned to normal. Her teeth were still chattering in shivers that had nothing to do with the cold when she realized that what she had just seen was not a dream but a memory.

XxX

He had been awoken by a nightmare, although this time it was not the common one of Beth being shot but an old one of his mother's death. The phantom smell of burning flesh was heavy in his nostrils so Daryl stood and eased open the window to his tiny room, taking greedy mouthfuls of the cold fresh air.

The air calmed him quickly but despite his exhaustion Daryl knew that he would not likely find sleep again that night. He shut the window till it was only open a crack before he lay back down on his bed, his hands folded on his chest as he stared through the darkness at his ceiling.

His mind drifted as it always did these days to Beth, and he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders at the memory of her face. It had been over a week since she had told him she was going to stay, over a week where he slowly began to stop being afraid to wake up and be told she had fled in the night. It helped of course that he saw her twice daily, when they passed each other on the way to and from work. They never talked long, not more than a few minutes at a time, but every time it happened Daryl began to accept what Maggie had told him as the truth, he was the only person Beth ever tried to talk to.

Carol had told them about how she and Beth met, how she had run off for a few minutes to calm down and how she could barely look at her the rest of the day. Since then they had all agreed to try to meet Beth only if they were with someone she had already met. Even over the course of a week Daryl knew she had yet to meet everyone. He had been there when she met Carl, the boy handling their reintroduction far better than Daryl had. He had even managed to get Beth to smile at him, not one of her shy unsure smiles that seemed her custom now but one of her old ones. One of the beaming sunshine bright smiles when Carl had told some truly awful joke about amnesia that they had been lucky Beth found funny instead of hurtful.

He knew Beth had also met Tara and Rosita one day when they had come in together, Tara had fallen on a run and twisted her ankle so Rosita had helped her hobble to the clinic. Carol had managed to intercept them before Beth got to them and had introduced the three of them to each other. They all said Beth didn't even look scared to meet them but Carol thought that might have been because she had never actually met them before. That even though to Beth, every introduction she had was the first one she could somehow sense that with those two it was the first time they met her too.

Michonne had introduced her to Sasha one night as they walked up on one of Daryl and Beth's nightly conversations. Beth had even manged to shake her hand without any visible tremble which Daryl took to be a good sign. He silently thought it might have been because the two women had never been close but Michonne thought it was because Daryl had been there and she always looked calmer near him.

Whatever the case, Daryl knew those were the only people who Beth had talked to so far. Everyone was being surprisingly calm about it, willing to wait it out until they got a chance to meet her. A few days after Beth told him she was staying Daryl had offered Rick to introduce them but the man had simply smiled sadly before saying he could wait a little while longer. Daryl wasn't sure what he was waiting for, if he didn't want to overwhelm Beth or if he still saw her being shot when he closed his eyes like Daryl sometimes did. Or maybe he just felt guilty remeeting her before anyone else did.

Maggie was the one having the hardest struggle not going to Beth but she and Glenn seemed to have come up with some kind of plan not to meet her just yet. Glenn confessed to him the other night that Maggie was hoping Beth would remember some part of her on her own. Daryl didn't say anything but he thought if that was the case Maggie was going to have to wait a long time.

XxX

She wasn't sure exactly how she knew it was a memory but it had felt so unlike any of her dreams. Her hand still slightly throbbed from the phantom grasp of the woman's hand as she lay in the darkness of her room. Beth strained her mind to pull the memory back to the front again and she watched in a dull horror as the woman clutching her was devoured again and again.

She couldn't make out the woman's features due to the walkers on her and the blood and flesh flying everywhere. Beth put her head in her hands, her fingers rubbing absentmindedly at the scar the bullet left on her forehead as she tried to focus past the gore.

The woman, she knew it was a woman from the screams she could hear in her mind (dimly she wondered if some of those screams might actually be her own since the woman's throat was being ripped out) and she could see long blonde hair matted with blood flowing out behind her. Wherever they were it was dark and Beth couldn't make out much of anything beside the grizzly sight that was her first true memory.

She spent the rest of the night laying awake in the darkness and replaying the few short seconds in her mind, again and again. However, it wasn't until she was writing down the memory in the spiral bound notebook Morgan had gifted her that a new thought struck her. The pen slipped out of her fingers in shock as Beth replayed the memory again.

A woman. Long blonde hair.

Perhaps...was Beth remembering the brutal death of her own mother?

XxX

"I think we should invite Beth to dinner this week." Rick spoke cautiously, shifting Judith to his hip as he searched Daryl's eyes for his reaction to the idea.

Daryl rubbed a hand over his face as he sank down into a chair at the table, wishing he would have known that was the question he was going to start his morning to so he could have tried harder at catching some sleep,

Neither Carl nor Michonne were awake yet and Daryl knew Rick was only up this early because his daughter had been fussing, he had heard her through the thin walls. He reached up as Rick walked closer to join him at the table, grabbing Judith's hand as she passed. She giggled loudly, her fussing from before clearly forgotten.

"Dinner with us?" he finally asked when Judith's giggling had turned to quiet cooing and baby noises.

Rick settled his daughter in his lap, checking to make sure she was comfortable before continuing. "No." he paused to look up at Daryl then waiting for him to realize what he meant, which he did but Rick still felt the need to clarify. "I think we should invite her to our weekly dinner."

Daryl sucked in a breath at the thought, their weekly dinner where every member of their group came to eat the various dished they had all prepared. A dinner where Beth would be confronted by the numerous people she had yet to meet, including her own sister who would very likely not be able to resist going to her in that setting. The dinner they had first seen Beth at when she had returned to them nearly two weeks ago.

The dinner she had run from.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Daryl finally grunted, rubbing his eyes and suddenly grateful that it was his day off. He wouldn't have been able to tell a walker from a person come midshift if he was out on the wall today.

Rick didn't answer right away, clearly thinking over if the idea would be good for not only Beth but the rest of the group. Daryl wondered if he was thinking about their meal last week where the absence of Beth had felt so different than before because now they knew she was alive. It had been a subdued affair where the only real topic of conversation was Maggie grilling everyone who had spoke to Beth for a play by play of their meetings. Daryl had spent most of the meal avoiding her before finally slipping out the door and wandering around the compound until he was sure she had left.

"I think we should offer her the opportunity." Rick finally spoke, turning his gaze to Daryl again. "I know we didn't last week because we didn't want to scare her off, but now..." he paused again and Daryl brushed some of his overgrown hair out of his eyes to watch as Rick tried to collect his thoughts. "She's met some of us and seems to be handling it better with each person. I think we should at least let her know that she's welcome to come even if she never does."

XxX

By the time she left for work Beth had nearly chewed a hole through her lower lip in worry. The more she thought about it the more she accepted the fact that the woman whose demise she had remembered was her mother. Beth felt strangely empty at the thought, no surge of grief bowed her over in the streets and no tears fell from her eyes. She was sad of course, but she could not tell what made her sadder. The fact that she would never get the chance to remeet her mother or the fact that she did not remember enough about her to mourn her as she should have.

As she walked, the remaining mud from last week's stream of rain storms squelching under her shoes, Beth let herself wonder again if any of her so called 'family' was actually related to her by blood. She was fairly sure that none of the ones she had met already were not related to her but was anyone in the group? She supposed it didn't really matter. Morgan had told her how these days family very rarely meant blood.

She was distracted by both her thoughts and the memory and she wasn't paying very much attention to where she was going, letting her feet walk her down the familiar path to the clinic without the aid of her mind. So she shouldn't have felt as surprised as she did when she finally collided with something. Well judging from the slight 'oof' of pain, someone.

Beth began to apologize, bending down to grab one of the books that had tumbled out of the other person's arms upon collision. She knelt in the mud, fingers scrambling to rescue the tomes before they became even dirtier by the splashes of people walking past. The person she had run into, a boy around her age she noticed from the corner of her eye, crouched with her and soon they had managed to collect all of the books. Beth stood with him and moved to carefully place the books on the stack in his arms but the look on his face stopped her.

He was scrambling to settle his face into one of blankness but Beth could still see the faint hint of surprise as his dark eyes took her in with that look she was starting to easily recognize, the 'I know you but you don't know me' look. But behind it Beth could see something else, something that none of the other people she had met had looked at her with. He had just opened his mouth to speak when she realized it was gratitude.

"Thanks." his voice was slightly choked and he had to clear it a few times before he whispered again, "Thank you."

Beth may not have known who the boy before her was but she knew without a doubt that he was not just thanking her for the books.

XxX

He could feel the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes as he thought over Rick's proposal.

The man had a point, Beth should know she was welcome at the dinners. Honestly Daryl didn't even know if she knew about them. She had come with Morgan to one of them, the one that ended in disaster and unbelievable joy at the sight of her, but he wasn't sure if she knew they were a weekly thing, or that she was welcome back.

He didn't know if she would come, it was very hard for him to predict what Beth would do although that was not a knew feeling for him. She had never done what he had expected. Maybe she would show up and maybe she wouldn't but would inviting her really cause that much harm? If they let her know it was entirely her choice to show up or not surely she wouldn't be scared away.

After several minutes of contemplation Daryl finally coincided with Rick, agreeing to let him have Morgan tell Beth the invitation was out there and always open.

XxX

She waits to feel that flare of panic she had gotten when she met Carol unprepared and alone but strangely nothing comes. While she doesn't exactly feel calm she also does not feel the urge to run away from him. She shifted her feet awkwardly for a moment before she spoke.

"I'm Beth." he was still looking at her with that barely veiled look of surprise and gratitude and it made Beth tilt her head to the side in interest. "What's your name?"

The smallest of smiles spread across his face then which surprised Beth almost more than the gratitude in his eyes. So far most of the people who had remet her had just looked sad or like they couldn't believe she was there but this boy looked happy at the chance to talk to her, even if it was just reintroductions. "I'm Noah."

_Noah._ Beth rolled the name around in her mind, waiting to see if it would click with anything in there. As she had grown to expect nothing came. However, the boy before her did not look disappointed when she kept looking at him like he was a stranger. Beth found herself looking over his shoulder then, at the nearly empty street disappointed to not find Daryl among the few residents walking past. Having him there would make the question she was about to ask much easier.

She didn't know why she felt the sudden urge to ask it, perhaps it was remembering her mother's demise that made it easier or simply made her more curious. She had agreed to try to get to know these people and that included knowing more than their names so it was with that thought in mind (and a burning desire for Daryl to be there too) that she finally asked the question she had been beginning to want to ask everyone.

"How do you know me?"

XxX

The house was empty but Daryl still couldn't get himself to rest. Everyone had gone off to their jobs, Michonne to help plan out the next run with her team, Judith to the childcare center where a few women watched over all the children still to young to work or go to school, Carl to the small school until midday and then off to the small field where he helped with the farming, and Rick off to patrol the streets (it still amused Daryl to no end that Rick was a sheriff again and that this town was holding onto life before so strongly that they actually had a cop to keep things running smoothly).

Daryl was tempted to leave anyway, to walk the familiar path to see Beth before she got to the clinic, to meet up with like they did every morning. That was what he had done on his day off last week, claiming he wanted to walk Carl to the house used as a classroom. Carl had been a bit confused, especially when Daryl took them the other way but since he got to talk to Beth that day (and see that smile Daryl thought he wouldn't see for a long time, if ever) he didn't complain. When it came time for Beth to be leaving the clinic Daryl decided he needed to take a walk and he ran into Beth again.

But with the knowledge that Morgan was telling Beth about the dinners later that day Daryl didn't want to find her on his day off again. He didn't want word to get back to her and for her to be scared of him for seeking her company so often. It was taking nearly all of his self control not to go out there anyway but somehow he managed, the promise of getting to see her tomorrow helping ease him into some much needed sleep.

XxX

She saw the briefest flash of surprise cross Noah's face at the question. It occurred to her then that these people were probably talking about her, discussing her every interaction to see if she was recovering any of her memory. The realization made her feel slightly uncomfortable, that she was the topic of conversation for people who were still strangers to her, some of whom she had yet to even meet. Whatever they said about her it was apparent that they knew as well as she did that she had not yet asked anyone for any information beyond their names.

To his credit Noah did not back down from the task of being the first to provide real information on her past to her addled brain. He shrugged the best he could with his armful of books before he spoke, his eyes glued to hers, probably so he could catalog any flash of recognition in her eyes and report it back to their 'What Beth Knows' meetings.

"We were trapped in a-" he paused then to think over the best description before finally settling on a generic, "Bad place together." He was still watching her but Beth felt nothing at that information. What kind of bad place? Like a prison? Were they held captive somewhere?

"It was a hospital. They found people and kept them to work for them."

Beth's eyes lit up at the word hospital and something clicked in place in her brain. "I woke up in a hospital. A man there, Dr. Edwards, he saved me from." her frantic words trailed off and she rose her hand up to stroke the bullet scar on her forehead.

Noah's eyes traveled with her hand to stare at the scar on her forehead. A look of pain briefly crossed over his features and another thought occurred to her then. She felt like she had unearthed a handful of her missing puzzle pieces and that the smallest part of the picture was starting to become clear to her.

"You were there. When I was shot." While she did not know that for sure she did not ask it as a question but Noah took it as one.

His dark eyes met hers again as he nodded, and as he spoke she suddenly understood the gratitude he could not disguise when he looked at her.

"You saved me."

XxX

He spent the rest of the morning in a restless sleep, waking often to familiar nightmares. His parents, Beth being shot, walkers, Beth being shot and on and on. Eventually he gave up on the idea of getting any real form of sleep that day and instead set to work on shaping arrows, the way he often spent his days off.

Perhaps it was because he had not gotten to see her that morning, or maybe it was just because she was never to far from his thoughts, but Daryl could not seem to get Beth's face out of his mind. He felt strange suddenly about having Rick asks Morgan to ask Beth to the dinners. It felt like such a backwards way to do it. Like they were ashamed to ask her themselves.

He was beginning to wonder if he should have offered to invite Beth himself.

XxX

He had already given her so much to think on that Beth decided not to ask Noah how exactly getting shot in the head had saved him. She had simply accepted his words as yet another fact about her life that she had not been aware of before passing him the rest of the books and biding him goodbye. She kept one eye out for Daryl as she finished the rest of her short walk to work but she didn't see him, the smallest flash of disappointment filling her as she headed up the porch stairs.

She spent most of the day on autopilot, cleaning the clinic and tending to the people with the small outbreak of cold the rain had unleashed on the community. She made small talk with her patients and ignored the bright smiles James tended to flash her from across the room every ten minutes as she worked. Her mind was as far from the clinic as could be that day.

It was like she was back in the hospital again, and she finally understood to some degree the wariness everyone there had treated her with. She had originally been held there against her will, that much was clear to her (she found herself suddenly grateful she had left in the dead of night). Since Noah was no longer there she could only assume that she had originally been planning to leave with him. Then something happened, she got shot, and she had been left behind. Everyone in the hospital had been weary of her because they had been expecting her to leave again, perhaps even to fight them if they didn't let her. She wondered if anyone had even been surprised to wake up one day and find her gone or if they had been expecting that since she had woken up.

She supposed it didn't matter and she spent the rest of the day toying with the information Noah had given her and the memory her brain had let her have back. As she sterilized tables next to Carol Beth considered asking the older woman how they had met but she finally decided against it. Her mind had to much to work on as it was. She could wait a few more days before asking her.

However as the day passed Beth found that whenever her thoughts were not replaying the grizzly memory that had come to her in her sleep or the things Noah had told her they were drawn to thoughts of Daryl. She had seen him, if not spoken to him, every day since she had walked into that little house filled with the answers to her past. It felt strange not having seen him that day and she found herself suddenly worried that he was hurt.

The memory of her mother's death had only reminded her that they did not have unlimited time in this world.

She needed to get to know Daryl and these people before she no longer had the chance.

XxX

As the hours passed the house seemed to be getting smaller around him. Daryl knew it was just his imagination, he was the only person there the house should have felt larger than usual with its emptiness. Instead Daryl found himself passing the floors, opening several windows in the attempt to draw a real breath. He had never been good with being inside, it was why he left the safety of the prison so often. He never seemed to breath right when he was behind walls.

Finally, after nearly an hour of feeling cooped up like he was in a cage Daryl fled the house, his chest feeling lighter the second he shut the door behind him. He had only meant to go for a walk around the perimeter to clear his head but he found himself unsurprised when he began heading in the direction of the clinic without a conscious thought. It was just coming into sight and he was still trying to decide if he was going to simply walk past it or not when the door opened and Beth stepped out. At the sight of her all his remaining feelings of unease at being cooped up inside left him and he felt like he could breath freely for the first time that day.

She caught his eye as she walked down the steps, the smallest of smiles spreading across her lips as she approached him where he had stopped to wait for her.

"I didn't see you this morning." she said by way of introduction as she stopped a few feet from him. Her voice was not needy or accusing, it was merely curious and matter of fact. Daryl felt pleasantly surprised that she had noted his absence and perhaps it was that feeling that made him tell her the truth.

"It's my day off." he said with a shrug, causing her eyebrows to knit together slightly. He knew the question she was going to ask before she did but she asked it anyway.

"Then what are you doing here? Are you sick?" the concern in her tone made Daryl's heart clench, not to mention the fact that she still worried about him even though she didn't know him. Daryl tried to reason with himself that Beth would be concerned for anyone, that surely the gunshot hadn't changed that about her, but that did not stop him from feeling happy enough to say.

"Came to walk you home."

XxX

She couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face at his words and she thought she might have seen Daryl's shoulders unclench at the sight of it. A few days ago the admission would have made her slightly nervous, and to be honest if it had been anyone else seeking out her company for such a small thing she would have likely refused them. But this was Daryl and while she may not remember anything about him from her before life she thought she was beginning to know him now. So far she liked what she had learned and it was that that had her nodding consent, both of them starting to walk as one down the street towards her home.

They walked in silence for a moment before Daryl spoke, "Has Morgan talked to you today?"

Beth blinked at him in surprise, she wasn't sure what she had expected him to want to talk to her about so much that he came out on his day off to walk her but she had not been expecting that. She shook her head in confusion and Daryl nodded slowly as if he had expected that.

She waited a moment to see if he would clarify his question on his own or if she needed to ask him. Thankfully Daryl decided to explain, turning his head to face the street as he spoke.

"We do these dinner things every week." he shrugged as if to say they hadn't been his idea. "All of us get together and you know..." he trailed off for a moment before finally saying, "Have dinner." He cringed ever so slightly as he repeated himself.

Beth felt a sudden surge of endearment for the man walking beside her, looking down at her shoes to hide her smile as he continued quickly. "We were going to have Morgan tell you about it, let you know you were invited if you ever wanted to come but I-" he trailed off again, giving a sheepish shrug, perhaps indicating that he had wanted to invite her himself or that the others had thought one of their own should extend the invitation and he had been chosen to do so.

Beth bit her lip at the thought of being near so many people at once, people from a past she didn't remember. Even though she had slowly been meeting more and more people who once knew her the idea terrified her. There would be no place to run, she couldn't do that to them, not again. She would have to face them all and she had the feeling it would be like an invitation for them to give her information on her past that she had not asked for. The idea of it scared her but at the same time made her nervous with anticipation for the things she could learn if she chose to ask. She was still unsure of what she wanted to do, so as she came to a stop in front of her house she turned to Daryl and asked him the reason why she thought he was the one inviting her.

"Do you want me to come?"

He meets her eyes at that, his blue gaze slowly becoming familiar to her as he shrugged. She thinks that is the only answer he is going to give her so she is surprised when he admits out loud, "Yeah." their eyes hold for a moment longer before he quickly adds in a mumble, "If ya want to."

And maybe it was her promise to herself to try, or the fact that she had a real memory of her past now. Maybe it was even the prospect of getting to talk to Noah again and ask him what he meant by her saving him. Perhaps it was even excitement about getting to meet the few other people she had once known but did not yet, to be able to get answers to any question she decided to be brave enough to ask. Beth thought it was a compilation of all of those things but she knew that mostly it was the man before her, staring at her with thinly veiled hope in his blue eyes that got her to answer.

"I guess I can stop by." she sees the look of disbelief flash across his face before he schools his features into a blank mask and Beth knew that he had not been expecting that answer. That he had not let himself hope that she would actually agree to show up and face all of them at once. She was a bit surprised herself but it had been nearly two weeks since she had found these strangers, her family, and she had yet to learn very much about them or her past despite her promise to Morgan and herself to try to get to know them. Beth thought she was a woman who stuck to her words so it was time for her to actually act on them.

"I do have one condition though." she spoke hastily as she remembered the dinner she had walked in on the night she found her 'family'. Daryl's eyes narrowed slightly and he nodded for her to continue, looking a bit weary now and what she might ask for.

"No one's allowed to hug me."

This time she knows that the small upturn of his mouth is a smile.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Although he would likely never say it aloud Morgan was proud of her. Neither of them were very big on talking about their feelings, but Beth could still see it in his eyes as he waved goodbye on his way to work.

The night before when they were settling down to dinner he had started to tell her about the group meal her family had every week. He had ended it with saying they wanted her to know she had an open invitation and would be welcome when and if she ever decided to go. Beth thought Morgan was going to keep going, telling her about all the reasons why she should go to the dinner before she had finally decided to interrupt what she was beginning to suspect was a rehearsed spiel.

"I'm going." Morgan looked at her quizzically, perhaps confused by her lack of panic or simply surprised she had agreed so quickly. She admitted with a sheepish shrug as she stared down at the corn she was pushing around her plate, "Daryl asked me about it earlier. I told him I'd go."

She looked up at him as she finished talking and Beth didn't know what to make of the look on Morgan's face at her admission, there was the briefest flashes of surprise before his features settled into a look of understanding. She wasn't entirely sure what it was Morgan thought he was understanding but she didn't press. Her mind had been to full from the events of the day to add anything else to it.

Still, as they continued to eat in silence every time she looked across the table at him she could see the proud look in Morgan's eyes that she was finally going to actually get to know these people. That did not prepare her however for when Morgan asked her what food they should make tomorrow.

"Tomorrow?" Beth had asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. They never discussed their meals so early. One of them would just reach into the cupboard at night and they would make whichever can they pulled out first. It wasn't like thy had a lot of options anyway so what would be the point of fussing over it?

Morgan set his fork down as the smallest flashes of worry crossed his face before he wiped his features blank, the perfect poker face. "Daryl didn't tell you when it was?" he asked softly, his voice dropping the way it did when she got nervous or panicked. But Beth wasn't panicking now, she was just confused as she shook her head no to his question.

Daryl had told her the meals were weekly but he hadn't told her when it was this week. Surely he would have offered her some warning though if it was...

"Oh. Well its tomorrow night." Morgan answered her unasked question as he picked up his fork again. "You still want to go?" he asked, squinting across the table at her in the candlelight. Even though the town had solar panels that provided them with electricity most nights they both still felt more comfortable with the light of candles than the bright florescent lights that were in the house.

Beth paused for only a second before she nodded. She had told Daryl she would go after all, it shouldn't matter that she had less time than she thought she would to prepare for it.

XxX

Daryl wasn't sure what Rick was more surprised about, that Beth had agreed to come to the dinner or that Daryl had been the one to ask her. He had almost anticipated the man to be cross with him, it had been Daryl's idea to use Morgan to ask Beth after all, but Rick seemed surprised more than anything and that quickly passed into happiness. Even when Daryl passed on the message that Beth didn't want anyone to touch her the small smile that was beginning to form on his face did not falter. Soon enough him, Michonne and Carl were suggesting what dish they would contribute to the meal that night.

Rick and Michonne offered practical dishes they could actually make but like every week Carl liked to throw out foods that were now a thing of the past, such as pizza and ice cream. It had become a sort of joke between them, how many dishes could Carl remember before they settled on what can of food they would actually use to make their contribution. Sometimes they even kept score, counting up how many days or weeks Carl could go without repeating a food. Daryl thought his current record was eleven days although he had been so out of it for most of their arrival that it could have been longer.

Their giddiness was unparalleled that morning with the knowledge that Beth would be at their table that very night. Daryl even almost suggested that they make snake jerky before he realized that he was the only person who got that joke anymore. His good mood slipped away as he stood, leaving the others laughter behind as he headed out to work.

XxX

Even with him being proud of her decision to learn more about her past Beth did not want to tell Morgan about the memory she had gotten about her mother's death. She didn't want to tell anyone about it really. It wasn't because it felt like some painful thing, she didn't remember her mother after all, just the last few seconds of her demise. Still, it was the first real memory she had ever gotten. It had so much more substance to it than the few flashes of her past that she had gotten before. This felt like a_ real_ memory and Beth didn't want to share it with anyone else just yet. She still had to many questions about it and it felt private. It felt like the one thing from her past that she knew and that no one could take away from her. Again.

Another reason she didn't want anyone to know about it was because she didn't want them to think it was a sign that her memory was coming back. If they thought that they would only be even more disappointed when her past never came back to her. Beth was already starting to accept the fact that this might be it, that she would only ever get her past in brief flashes and random segments she might never fully understand. But she did have her family here and once she was ready and brave enough to ask them questions they could fill in her past for her. She would be okay if her memories never returned to her. But the others were a different story.

She had considered telling Morgan of course, he was the only person she fully trusted here but he would not be able to tell her if the memory was real or not. She had even briefly thought about telling Daryl but she decided against it, not wanting to hurt him more if the memory turned out to be false or the only one she ever got.

In the end she just wrote the memory down in her journal and tried not to replay it to much, already the screams had begun to dull to her.

XxX

He found himself grateful that he had made more arrows the day before. He'd been up there less than an hour and he could already tell that he was going to be doing a lot of shooting that day. The walkers that came shambling out of the thin tree line to head towards them looked almost fresh and Daryl was fairly certain they were all from the same camp that had recently been attacked. One of the corpses even wore a backpack and another had a gun strapped to their thigh.

The sight of it reminded Daryl when he was teaching Beth to use his bow and they had found the walker with the gun on his hip. That thought only dragged him further down the chain of events following that but he managed to stop his mind just before the piggyback he had given her. No, the _serious_ piggyback.

Those thoughts brought him back to Beth, who he for once hadn't been thinking about as he tried to guess how many more walkers he would have to be putting down that day. She hadn't been there on his walk that morning and at first Daryl had felt a brief surge of panic that he had scared her off, that showing up to walk her home had been to much to soon. By the time he got to the wall he realized that it might have just been her day off this time. Normally he would have felt a bit disappointed that he hadn't gotten to see her but today he had the promise of seeing her that night at dinner.

If she showed up and they didn't scare her off immediately that is.

XxX

She tried to distract herself from her thoughts but she had already read the few books the house had when she had been in quarantine upon arrival. She wondered what Noah had been doing with all those books the day before and if there was anyway she would be able to find some new reading material as she did not think she could stand to reread the books another time. She found she liked getting to loose herself in a book, that even the black spots in her vision didn't distract her very much from the stories.

But Beth already knew these books and she knew they would not provide a well enough distraction from her racing thoughts. The more she tried to ignore her memory the more prescient it became. She kept trying to look past the woman being eaten, to make some sense of the dark shapes behind her, but nothing came forward.

Finally being in the house became to much for her, she needed to get out from its walls before she started screaming. Beth slipped outside, taking deep breaths of the fresh air with the hopes that a walk would help clear her mind. At the very least it would give her something to do besides obsess over a memory she still didn't fully understand.

She used the wall as a guide to keep her from wandering the streets aimlessly. She knew from yesterday that she should not walk the streets when preoccupied or she'd run into something (or someone). She walked slowly, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans, as she tried to piece together all the things she didn't know. Beth was beginning to think Morgan's suggestion to write down what she remembered would have been better put to use writing down all of the stuff people told her that she didn't fully understand. The more people she met the more she was beginning to realize just how much she didn't know about her past and who she once was.

Beth looked up at the sound of a metallic clicking and she was surprised to find that she had already reached Daryl's guard station, even more surprised by the strange flutter in her chest as her eyes landed on him. He didn't see her yet, his gaze focused over the wall as he lined something up within the aim of his crossbow. Beth watched as the bolt flew from the crossbow and dimly she heard a wet thud that she supposed meant it had hit its target. Once again she marveled at the strength it had to take him to use that weapon.

She hadn't left the house with the thought of finding him. She truly had not meant to join him but perhaps she was to accustomed to seeing him everyday because the next thing she knew her hands and feet were pulling her up the ladder.

XxX

A shuffling noise from behind him drew his eyes away from the fifth walker of the morning he had just put down. His last few days on post had been relatively clear and he was growing antsy as the numbers approaching the walls grew. He could only hope that the group that had fallen wasn't very large. Sure they had walls but everything had its weak spots and he wasn't looking forward to finding out where theirs were if a herd decided to press on it.

Shoving the thoughts back Daryl turned towards the sound by the ladder. As he saw the familiar crown of blonde hair Daryl felt only the smallest flicker of surprise. Somehow he had known before turning that it would be her.

He cast a quick glance at the outside to make sure it is clear for the moment before shifting his bow into one hand and reaching down to offer his other hand to Beth. She looked up at him only briefly before grabbing it and letting him help her to her feet. Daryl tried to let go of her hand immediately once she was standing but he still felt like he let their grip linger a second to long. It had been two weeks and still every time he touched her he felt a thrill at the fact that she was actually alive.

He cleared his throat before turning back to his post, "You shouldn't be here." he thinks he see the briefest flash of pain cross her face from the corner of his eye. He curses himself silently, not having meant to offend her. "There's a lot of walkers today." he clarified before she could say anything or leave. "It's dangerous."

He turned to meet her eyes then and Beth stared at him with that unnerving once familiar blue gaze before she spoke. "I can take care of myself."

Daryl has heard her say that same thing before, only then she was angry with him and she does not seem angry now. And maybe it was the memory or maybe it was the slightly drunken feeling being around her always gave him that made him speak. He did not mean for the words to slip out but they do. "Yeah I know."

He feels guilty the minute the words leave. He tried not to say things like that around her, tried not to show her how well he had once known her. He feels a flare of panic that she will be offended somehow but she was simply looking at him, her head tilted slightly to the side as she watched him. He cannot handle simply staring back at her so he lifts his bow to see if he can spot anymore walkers in the treeline. After what seemed like ages but was likely only minutes Beth finally spoke.

Her voice was so quiet that the wind almost took it away as she whispered, "What else do you know about me?"

XxX

She bites her lip as she watches him. He had been staring down the length of his bow as he scanned the woods for more dead bodies to join the ones littered on the ground before them but at her question he lets the bow fall slack, leaving it to rest on the strap wrapped across his chest. Daryl is quiet for a long time, not looking at her as his brow furrows. Beth worries that she might have gone to far somehow, that she had asked to much of him with what she thought was a simple question. She had almost convinced herself that he was not going to answer her so when he finally spoke, his voice as low as her own, she nearly stumbled forward in shock.

"You're tough. You pick at things more than you eat them. You sing like a damn angel. You're good with kids." Daryl spoke slowly, pausing between every bit of information he gave her as though he was giving her time to absorb it. Beth began to inch closer to him, taking in every scrape of information he was giving her like it was air. He was staring at her now, their eyes locked as he told her about the girl he used to know, the girl she used to be.

The more he speaks the faster the words start to come, as though he had been waiting for her to ask this very question since she had arrived. "You like to keep a journal. You're good with a knife, even better with a gun. You hate goodbyes. You're a decent tracker and were getting to be a pretty good shot with my bow-"

Daryl looks like he could keep going for days but Beth cuts him off in surprise. "Your bow?"

He stops talking suddenly, blinking slowly as if he hadn't quite realized all that he was saying. Daryl nods at her, looks like he might even continue but Beth stops him by reaching over and putting one finger on the sun warmed metal of the crossbow in his arms.

"I doubt I could even lift this thing." Beth admitted with a laugh. She looked up at Daryl with a small grin, surprised to find how close together they were standing. She could see the rise and fall of his chest as he stared down at her before shaking his head.

She thinks he is going to correct her, to tell her that of course she had been able to lift it before, so she is surprised when he lifts the strap from his body and turns to offer the bow he treats like a child to her. There is the slightest hint of teasing in his voice and something else she can't quite place as he whispers.

"Find out."

XxX

Beth looks up at him in surprise before her gaze drops to the bow he is offering her. Finally her small hands reach out cautiously and take the heavy bow from him. Daryl held his breath as she took it from him, waiting in anticipation as Beth moved to lift the bow up higher. She looks pleasantly surprised to find that she could hold it, looked even more pleased with herself when she holds it up to look down its scope like he had once taught her.

Her fingers edge towards the trigger like she has always held this weapon and Daryl felt that surge of pride he had gotten all those days ago in the woods when she hit her first target. She looks like she is itching to shoot something and Daryl finds himself suddenly grateful for the walker that came tumbling out of the trees then. Beth gasped, dropping the bow down a few inches and turning to hand it to Daryl but he simply shook his head. Beth stares at him, her mouth dropping open slightly in shock, as he speaks.

"You do it."

Her eyes widened as she shook her head, a few loose strands of her ponytail hitting her face and Daryl finds himself missing the braid she used to put it in it. She thrusts the bow in his direction as she speaks. "I don't know how to use this thing."

The walker was getting closer to them and Daryl knew he should take the bow and put it down but he still finds himself shaking his head, their eyes meeting as he offers her a challenge. "Just try."

He sees a flicker of doubt and panic dance across Beth's face, her mouth opening in protest. He took a step back from her then and she cast a familiar glare at him before taking a deep breath and raising the bow up in her slender arms. Daryl felt a sudden brush of fear that she didn't remember how to shoot the bow, although her muscles seemed to remember how to hold it. His fears went unwarranted as Beth let out a long breath, lining the walker up in her sights as her finger squeezed the trigger.

They both watched with varying degrees of surprise as the bolt landed home in the walker's skull.

Beth let out the smallest of laughs before she turned to Daryl with a wide smile he ever so slightly returned. "Knew you could do it Greene."

The smile slips off of Beth's face for a second as the bow droops lower in her hands.

"Greene." she whispered the word as if it was a new food she was intent on tasting before looking up at him. Daryl realized his mistake before she even asked him.

"Is that my last name?"

XxX

Beth Greene.

She thought the name had a certain ring to it and she found herself glad to share a name with her favorite color. Daryl was looking at her like he majorly screwed up, clearly waiting for the panic to take over her. Beth waited for a moment for it to, happy when all she felt was a stirring curiosity. Maybe things would get easier to hear the more she learned. Daryl opened his mouth to say something, to apologize or answer her but she knew from the look on his face that she was right. Her last name was Greene.

She wondered if it was strange that she was just finding this out but seeing that she didn't have anyone to ask that or anything to compare it to really she personally thought it wasn't. She didn't know a lot of things about herself, a last name was very low or her things to think about.

Hearing it from his mouth made her curious though, as did all of the things he knew about her. Daryl had clearly known her for a long time and as she passed him back his bow Beth found herself suddenly needing to know. She had some questions and he had the answers.

"Daryl." he looked up at his name, every time she said it she would pause to wait for it to click something inside of her brain. As always there was only silence. She pressed forward past it to ask him. "How did we meet?"

XxX

For a brief second he worries that he heard her wrong or that he misunderstood the question. She is still looking up at him with big expectant eyes and Daryl finds himself shrugging awkwardly as he readjusted his bow strap across his body. The joy at her having shot down the walker had passed with his mistake of saying her last name. He had forgotten again how much she didn't know.

But here she was, asking him her second question about her past. That was progress, she was willing to learn. Daryl wished she didn't have to learn though, wished that she could remember and know all of these things on her own.

"Long story." he finally grunted, not entirely sure where he would even begin. Beth didn't realize how hard of a question that actually was.

He had met her at the farm yes, but only briefly. Back then it was more like they lived in the same place but the didn't really know each other. Same with the prison, although he did begin to learn more about her there as their numbers slowly dwindled. But Daryl personally thought that he didn't really meet Beth until they were out on their own. When it was just the two of them and a seemingly never ending stretch of woods.

"I have time." Beth said, still looking at him with those expectant eyes.

He didn't know which one he should say, hell which one he could say without bringing up a lot of places and people she didn't remember.

"It'll just give you more questions." he finally admitted, surprised when Beth only frowned for a moment before shrugging and repeating his words from mere minutes before.

"Just try?"

XxX

Beth was beginning to expect some awful story or some tale of how he had saved her life so she is surprised when the first thing Daryl says after his long silence is, "We met on a farm." he paused to look at her then, to study her face as she took in this small bit of information.

Her brows furrow together at the thought. _A farm._ She didn't know of any farms although she had seen quite a few on the way up here. Perhaps they had run into each other on one of those abandoned fields. She nods for Daryl to keep going which he does slowly, showing her he is fully prepared to stop talking the second it becomes to much for her.

"We met on _your_ farm." he clarified, causing Beth to look at him in surprise.

She had a farm? Well her family had a farm is what she supposed Daryl really meant. Her and her mother and well Beth didn't really know who else. Had her father been around or was he long gone by that point to either death or simple abandonment? The thoughts were running wild through her head but Beth nodded slowly anyway, telling Daryl to give her another piece of the puzzle that was once her life.

"It was pretty early into all this." he waved his hand to indicate the walkers laying on the ground between the trees and the wall. He looked like he was thinking over what to say next but Beth interrupted him.

"Did the people from the hospital take me from the farm?" she asked, remembering what Noah had said about the hospital people having been keeping them against their will. It made sense that they took them against their will to then didn't it?

Daryl blinks at her in surprise and confusion before shaking his head slowly. "No." his voice was suddenly rough as he looked down at her. "No, they didn't take you till a long time after that."

And Beth knows then, watching him watching her that whenever the people had taken her he had been there. Somehow they had gotten her away from him.

And now somehow, against all odds, he had gotten her back.

XxX

He doesn't tell her much more about their past after that. He had thought he had not given her very much to think on but it seemed that was not the case. Beth fell into a long silence, asking him only a few nonsensical questions about the farm as the hours passed and another pair of walkers were put down.

_Did we have horses? __**A few**._

_Was it in Georgia? **Yeah.**_

_Did we grow crops? **Couple of 'em.**_

And so the day passed. With every question Beth would pause, thinking over his response for a long time before she asked anything else. Daryl found himself regretting that he could not tell her more, thinking that Maggie or even Rick, Carl or Glenn would be better at answering questions about the farm. Maggie had grown up there after all and the others had at least paid attention to life on the farm. Daryl had spent most of their time on the Greene family farm looking for Sophia and then avoiding everyone. It wasn't until their last few days that he even started to consider the idea that they would be able to stay there long term.

Of course the second that idea crossed his head the place was destroyed by a herd.

Beth did not seem put out by his brief answers. She did not ask him to elaborate, did not ask for the horses' names or the types of crops they planted. She seemed content with the little morsels of information he could provide.

By the time his shift was over she was still up there standing beside him. His replacement, an older woman named Paula, showed little surprise at finding Beth on watch with him. Daryl knew the news of her and what had happened had already spread through the town like wildfire. Beth didn't even look nervous as she shook the woman's hand and Daryl hoped that was a sign that she would be able to handle dinner that evening.

They are already walking away from the fence when the thought hits him and Daryl realized that he had been so wrapped up in providing Beth with information on her past that he hadn't even had time to be nervous about that night. They join the people heading home on the streets, Daryl tapping his fingers against his crossbow nervously as he finally mustered up the courage to ask her.

"You still comin' tonight?"

Beth looked up him in surprise, her mind likely still on the information he had told her before she spoke. "Told you I was didn't I?"

Daryl nodded almost sheepishly, trying to let her words soothe him although he knew he would likely still worry about her showing up until she actually did. Beth must have seen some of the worry on his face because she offered him a small smile.

"I keep my word Daryl." her serious tone was out of place with her grin but Daryl found himself nodding in agreement anyway.

Her panicked words from a night long ago rang through his mind (_I'm not gonna leave you!) _as he looked down at her. She had left him though, although she hadn't meant to. It was more that she had been taken from him, taken from his again when she had been shot and yet again when she returned with no memory of who any of them were. Yet she still stood before him, small smile on her lips as they came to a stop in front of her home. She hadn't left him, not really. Somewhere in that new and yet familiar smile was the Beth he had once known.

He is torn from his thoughts when Beth reached forward and placed her hand softly on his arm. "I'll see you tonight." she whispered, her smile falling from her face as she stared at him, trying to get him to believe her. To get him to see the promise she was making in those four little words.

Daryl nodded, his eyes drifting to where her hand rested on his forearm. "Yeah." he muttered before tearing his gaze back to hers. "Tonight."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Daryl tapped his fingers against the arm of the couch restlessly before he stood up, the constant jitters of Carl's leg beside him finally becoming to much for him. He stood and tried not to make it look like he was pacing as he walked into the kitchen under the guise of checking on the food before he walked across the room where his family sat and stood scattered about. He was just wondering if he could turn back around and keep walking or if he should go into the hallway when Sasha spoke, leaning forward in her seat as she asked him.

"What time did you tell Beth to be here?"

Daryl paused and blinked at her in surprise. "Time?" he finally grunted out in confusion. He was still not used to people using time as an actual measurement here. People here used clocks and watches instead of the path of the sun to tell them where they were in the day. Daryl had long since written time off as pointless. As far as he was concerned it was just another man made concept that had no more use in this new world.

But apparently his family did not agree, a few of them exchanging looks before hiding sighs behind their hands. "When did you tell Beth she should arrive?" Eugene clarified as though the wording was the problem Daryl had with Sasha's question. He barely managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes, his nerves were to on edge as it was, he did not need to be talked down to.

"Just dinner time." Daryl finally said, shrugging as he turned and began to pace the room. To hell with what the others thought about it.

Maggie's low groan tore his mind back to the others and he turned in time to see her drop her head into her hands.

"Did you even tell her what day it was?" she mumbled into her fingers causing Daryl's skin to bristle in irritation.

"She knows its tonight." he snapped, pointedly ignoring the glare Glenn shot him. He knew full well how hard this was for the others, but it was hard for him too. The minutes kept on ticking by and still there was no sign of Beth.

"She'll be here." he whispered, more for his own reassurance than any of the others.

"Course she will." Rick said, walking over to him with Judith resting in his arms. "Beth said she would come so she will." the man looked like he was going to continue but before he could Judith let out a large belch and a string of vomit slid out of her mouth and onto Rick's sleeve. He let out a noise that was half sigh and half groan of disgust before he held Judith out to Daryl in apology and headed down the hallway to change.

Daryl took her without fuss, certain that she was just as nervous as everyone else to see Beth again. He didn't want to admit to the others, or really even himself, but he was hoping that Judith would help jog some of Beth's memory. Besides Maggie she was the only person left who Beth had spent the majority of her time with. And yeah, Judy might not have been Beth's daughter through birth but Beth had mothered her more than any women in their group after Lori died. Maybe some part of Beth would remember her.

He still musing over the thought when there was a soft knock on the door.

XxX

"It's okay to be nervous." Morgan said in a quiet voice as Beth dropped her hand back to her side. She looked over at him wearily, wondering if her nerves for the evening were painted across her face as he promised her. "We'll leave whenever you're ready."

Beth smiled at him in gratitude as the door swung open. Her eyes flit back to the open doorway and she finds she is not surprised to see Daryl framed in it. She thinks she hears him breathe a sigh of relief but her attention has been caught by something else.

"You have a baby?" she asked in shock as she stared at the child he held loosely in his arms. Beth would have thought that would be something he would have mentioned to her by now, even if she hadn't asked. She cannot tear her eyes away from the smiling little blonde girl in his arms as she cooed indecipherablely. Daryl grunted in surprise and Beth looked up at him to see him open his mouth to speak but suddenly a man was standing behind him and gripping his shoulder.

"She's my daughter."

Beth's eyes flickered to the man, his blue eyes held hers as Daryl passed the baby over to him. Although his face was covered in a short graying beard Beth thought that there was something familiar in the shape of his features Not familiar like a memory but familiar in something she had seen in her time here. She was still trying to remember if she had seen his face around town when he spoke again.

"I'm Rick Grimes." the man said holding out his free hand to her. Beth hesitated for just a moment before she reached out and took it. Rick squeezed her hand tightly as he shook it and she found herself wondering when she met this man. Had she known him before the world was overrun by the dead or did she meet him after like she had with Daryl?

"He's Carl's dad." Daryl's voice interrupted her inner musings and Beth found herself nodding, suddenly understanding why the man's face had seemed familiar to her. She had met Carl a few days ago and she had been surprised by how at ease she had immediately felt around him, although part of her suspected it was mainly due to his young age.

"What's her name?" Beth asked after a brief pause, trying to pull herself out of her thoughts as she nodded towards the child in the older man's arms.

Rick and Daryl spoke at the same time.

" Judith."

"Little ass kicker."

Rick and Morgan laugh but Daryl is simply staring at her as he often did, as though he had just provided her with some vital information in the child's strange but surprisingly cute nickname. Beth was just opening her mouth to comment on it when her mind shoved something forward without warning.

A dingy white plastic tub with the words 'Little Ass Kicker' written across it in loopy handwriting that looked very much like her own.

Beth's mouth shut with a snap and she tried to hide the effect the flash of memory had on her as she let Rick shepherd her and Morgan into the house.

XxX

Daryl makes sure to stay by her side as they walk into the room. He catches the way Beth's eyes flicker to the door a few times before she takes in the expectant faces staring up at her from around the room. It seemed as though all of them were holding their breath, unsure of what the protocol in this situation should be. Daryl doesn't know what to do, if he should take Beth around the room to each person or just point them out where they stand and say their names. Luckily he is spared from having to make the choice when Abraham pushed off from where he was leaning against the wall and headed towards them.

Before anyone could even feel nervous about his method he was in front of Beth and holding out his hand for her to shake.

"Sergeant Abraham Ford." Beth hesitated for a second, her eyes flickering to Daryl's briefly. At his quick nod she swallowed and reached her hand forward to grasp Abe's large one in a firm but short shake. "Good to meet you." the man smiled at her before his eyes drifted to Daryl's and he knew Abraham meant what he said. He was glad to meet Beth even if it was just to see some of the pain of her loss leave their group.

Spurred by his actions the others started to drift forward. Beth had already met some of them and Daryl saw the ones she met lingering where they stood, clearly willing to give everyone else a chance to get reacquainted with her before they came over.

Tyreese came next, he did not offer Beth his hand to shake as he stood in front of her clearly heeding to the warning Daryl had given them about Beth not wanting to be hugged. "I'm Tyreese." he said in his calming voice before nodding his head to where Sasha sat . "Sasha's my little sister."

Beth's eyes lit up a little at that and she nodded before whispering. "I've met Sasha." Daryl almost smiled at how proud she sounded to not be completely in the dark with their group's dynamic as Tyreese smiled at her sadly before walking away to where his sister sat.

After Tyreese Eugene came forward saying his name briefly before walking away. Daryl wasn't surprised by his lack of conversation, he was often awkward around all of them when there was nothing nerdy or vaguely scientific in the conversation. Daryl didn't know if meeting everyone was getting easier for Beth or if it was because she had never met Eugene before but she did not look nearly as nervous to meet him as she had with the first few people she had met.

Father Gabriel came forward then, clasping one of her hands in both of his. Daryl saw Beth's spine straighten and heard her sharp intake of breath at his touch. From the corner of his eye he saw Morgan, who was standing only a few feet away on her other side, take a step forward at the sound. Daryl couldn't help but feel like they were Beth's own personal guard dogs, not that either of them seemed to mind as they flanked her on either side.

Luckily the preacher made it fast, seeming to sense the unease his touch had given the trio. "I'm Father Gabriel. Its so wonderful to meet you." he patted Beth's hand once as he continued. "It is such a miracle that you survived and that you're here. It truly is an act of God."

He dropped Beth's hand with a smile before walking away. She cast a quick glance up at Daryl and he was pleased to see that she looked more confused than scared. He shrugged to let her know that the Father was harmless and she nodded before turning back to the last two people she had yet to meet.

"Hey Beth." the smile Glenn threw her was so easy that Daryl was not surprised to see her give him the smallest of smiles in return. "I'm Glenn."

Beth mumbled a quick hello and Daryl felt like everyone in the room drew in a collective breath as her eyes flickered to the last member of their group. Daryl's heart began to beat faster as he watched her face closely, searching for some kind of flicker of recognition as her sister spoke in a surprisingly clear voice.

"I'm Maggie."

And the whole room seemed to freeze as they waited, waited for something to click inside Beth's mind, waited for the damaged parts of her brain to recognize her older sister. Waited for her to burst into tears as all of her memories suddenly came rushing to her.

But all Beth does is smile.

XxX

After the introductions Rick managed to hold everyone off from approaching her so that they could all get some of the food that was clustered in mismatching dishes on the table. Beth waited until nearly everyone else had gotten their plates so that she did not have to stand in the small kitchen pressed tightly next to all of them. She hung back next to Morgan and Daryl and watched with a slight pang of envy at the ease with which the group interacted with each other.

The small laughs as someone said a joke that didn't quite reach her ears, the hand Glenn placed on Maggie's lower back as they walked back to their seats, the way Carl managed to duck around the others like he could sense their movements before they made them. Beth couldn't stop watching them all move like they were all pieces of a machine, working together in sync. She found herself wondering if she had once fit inside their dynamic that easily and if they could feel the strain of her absence in their movements.

Finally the kitchen was empty enough that when Daryl touched her arm to lead her towards the table she went without protest. She picked a few spoonfuls of food at random, not sure if she would even be able to keep anything down with all of the fluttering nerves in her stomach.

Plate of food in hand she walked back into the crowded room with Daryl, nodding gratefully at Morgan when he told her he was going to speak to Rick but to just grab him the second she was ready to leave. Shoving the nerves down she settled against the wall next to Daryl as all of the chairs were already taken. Beth didn't mind standing, it provided her with a better vantage point to observe the others with.

Most of them seemed content on giving her space, the fact that she was in the room with them seemed to be enough for now. A few of them, Maggie especially, kept staring at her, their eyes flickering away the moment that she caught them looking. The food Beth spooned into her mouth all tasted the same and she did not really notice what she was eating as she watched everyone. The conversations were scattered as everyone ate but finally Beth felt she could not force any more food down. She settled her spoon on her plate and wondered if the others were expecting her to start the conversation, if she was supposed to go to each of them and talk to them or wait for them to come to her.

She had just passed her plate to Daryl, who walked around her to take it into the kitchen, when Carl stood up and walked over to her. He leaned against the wall in Daryl's vacant spot just as the man came back. Daryl didn't say anything and just settled in on Beth's other side. She found herself shifting imperceptibly to the left so that their arms just brushed before she turned to Carl.

"Daryl told me I met him on a farm." she said softly, curious now as to how she had met all of the people in this room the first time. "Is that when we met?"

Carl looked delighted to be included in her questioning, for her to be trying to learn about her past. He nodded quickly as he spoke. "Yeah. I got shot." he explained, causing Beth's eyes to widen in surprise. She had not expected injury to be a part of why Daryl and some of the others had gone to her family's farm.

She doesn't quite know what to say and Carl looks like he is about to continue but suddenly Daryl is speaking, his breath tickling her face as she turned her head to face him.

"You wanna know how you met everyone?"

XxX

He didn't know why he had asked her the question, they had agreed after all to let Beth ask questions in her own time. But Daryl had been so sure in that moment that Carl was about to bring up Hershel and how he had saved him and Daryl did not know how Beth would react to hearing about the father she didn't remember only to be told that he was dead.

Thankfully Beth was nodding at him, looking up at him expectantly to fill in some of the blanks that were her mind. Daryl cast Carl a quick look that he hoped the boy understood meant not to mention anyone that wasn't still with them as they spoke.

"Rick, Carol, and Glenn you met at the farm." Daryl said softly, nodding to each member as he said their name. He paused to let Beth absorb this information, waiting to speak until she had nodded it was okay for them to continue.

"Michonne, Sasha and Tyreese you met at the p-" Carl cut himself off quickly at Daryl's slight shake of his head. Beth didn't know about the prison yet and that would likely only make her more confused. Daryl wanted to give her answers right now, not more questions. "You met at a place we stayed for a while." Carl finished lamely, shrugging slightly at Daryl's look of exasperation. "You met Judy there too." he continued quickly in the awkward pause that had descended on them.

Beth bit her lip as she nodded slowly, her eyes darting around the room to take in everyone, most of whom were still casting looks over at her every few minutes. The conversations in the room had lulled almost to a stop as everyone listened in on the information Carl and him were providing Beth with.

She looked okay for them to continue so Daryl offered her the last member she had known before everything happened, "You met Noah at-"

"The hospital." Beth nodded quickly, turning her head to meet Daryl's look of surprise with a explanation. "I ran into him the other day."

It was Daryl's turn to nod as he learned this new information. He had not known Noah had even remet Beth before that night let alone that he had told her anything about her past. He would have to talk to the boy later, find out everything he told Beth.

"Then that's everyone." Daryl said with a shrug before turning to look at her. "You didn't meet anyone else before..." his voice trailed off not knowing the best way to phrase her being shot in the head and everyone in the room thinking she was dead.

A strange look flickered across Beth's face then and she frowned as she stared across the room at her sister. "But what about her?" Beth whispered before she craned her neck to look up at Daryl. He suddenly remembered then why Beth had made her no hugging rule in the first place. Maggie's head rose to look at them open mouthed as Daryl silently began to curse himself before the question even left Beth's lips.

"How did I meet Maggie?"

XxX

Beth felt the effect her question had on the group instantaneously.

It was there in the look of pain on Daryl's face that he was trying hard not to show her, it was in the scattered sighs and groans she heard from the other's in the room, it was in the sharp drawn breath Carl took from beside her, but mostly it was in the woman she was questioning about herself. Beth turned back to face her in time to see her stand, waving off Glenn's reaching hand before she headed for the door and slipped outside of it.

Everyone in the room seemed to sink into themselves as the door shut behind her. Beth darted her eyes around at the group but no one seemed to be able to meet her eyes at the moment. She turned desperately to Daryl in the hopes that he would be able to offer her some form of an explanation but he was simply staring at the closed door with a frown.

Beth's eyes trailed to the door herself and she knew that whatever had made that woman leave, whatever was causing everyone to suddenly be unable to look at her was big. It was the reason why Maggie had hugged her that first night, had cupped her face and stared at her in wonder. Whatever the reason was it was important and no one in the room seemed to want to be the one to explain it to her.

With a slight huff of irritation to cover how scared she really was Beth headed across the room, placing her hand on Glenn's arm to stop him from opening the door. He met her eyes with a look of surprise as she shook her head and took a deep breath before slipping out the door herself.

XX

The moment the door shut for the second time Daryl was moving forward, cursing himself for not having told Beth about Maggie before she came to dinner and especially for not telling her before she walked outside. He had just been caught so off guard by her question. Even though he had known, they had all known, that Bet didn't remember anything he had still not thought to include Maggie in the ways Beth had first met everyone. He was cursing his oversight now, it was his fault that both of the Greene sisters were now hurting and had fled the house.

Carol's quiet voice broke through to him then as she whispered to the room at large, "Every time I think I've accepted it, that I've come to terms with Beth not remembering us, something like this happens."

Daryl finds himself nodding along as he stands next to Glenn, both of them staring at the door as if they could see through it, desperately wanting to know what was happening on the other side. Yet they both seemed to know not to even attempt to go out there, not until they heard screaming voices at least. Beth would have to learn eventually who Maggie was and it seemed that tonight was as good a night as any.

XxX

Maggie was sitting huddled on the top porch step, staring out down the street when Beth came outside. At the sound of the door clicking shut behind her Maggie looked over her shoulder, surprise flickering across her face as she saw who it was. She looked away quickly and Beth decided not to comment on the tears she was brushing away as she sunk down beside her on the steps.

Beth knew she should say something but she was unsure of where to begin. Her brain felt overloaded from all the people she had met that evening and all of the information they had given her so she didn't really know what to say. After a few minutes of silence Beth finally decided to just ask the question that had been on the back of her mind since the night she had first walked into this house.

She has to clear her throat before speaking, choosing to stare out down the empty street instead of looking at the woman beside her. "That night when you first saw me-" Beth paused to take a deep breath and gather her courage before she asked in a rush, "Why did you hug me?"

Maggie let out a shaky laugh devoid of humor at the question. Beth looked over at her from the corner of her eye and saw that she was staring down at her hands twisted in her lap. After a moments pause Maggie finally shrugged as she whispered, "I thought you were dead."

Beth found herself shaking her head almost immediately, that wasn't it and they both knew it. They were both all to well aware of the fact that everyone in that house had thought she was dead but this woman had dropped a glass and ran to fold her in her arms while everyone else just stared in shock. "No." Maggie looked over at her then, surprised at the forcefulness in Beth's voice as she asked her again.

"Why did _you_ hug me?"

And this time they are looking at each other when she asks it and Beth knew she was right in thinking that she was asking something big. That the answer was why Maggie was fighting off tears, why she had run out of the house when Beth asked how they met. Beth suddenly felt like she was on the edge of a cliff and that the answer was about to push her over it but still her curiosity almost outmatched her fears.

Maggie drew in a deep breath and the second she opens her mouth Beth thinks she already knows the answer. The words do not shock her nearly as much as she had expected as Maggie whispered, "You're my sister."

XxX

The soft sounds of the group talking behind them fill his ears like dull background noise as Daryl crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the closed door in front of him. He desperately wanted to go outside, to make sure that Maggie hadn't scared Beth off and to make sure that both women were even still out there. For all he knew Maggie had left for her home when she walked outside. Shifting his weight Daryl told himself that wasn't true. Maggie wouldn't have left for good, just for a moment to get some air. But if that was the case and she was still out there then Daryl knew Beth would be trying to talk to her. He didn't know how well that was going to go.

He was so wrapped in his thoughts that Glenn had to say his name twice before he looked over at him with a grunt.

"What all have you told Beth?" Glenn asked curiously, seeming as desperate to go outside and check on the girls as Daryl was. Since they both knew that they shouldn't interrupt whatever was happening out there Glenn seemed to just be trying to distract himself.

Daryl looked at him for a moment before finally answering with a shrug. "Not much." Glenn was still staring at him, clearly expecting more so Daryl let out a soft sigh. "She just started askin' me questions today." he explained before turning his gaze back to the door and wondering if Beth would be mad if he opened it just a crack to check on her.

Glenn was silent for a minute before he spoke again, his voice soft as he wondered, "Do you think she'll ever remember?"

Daryl lets the question he had been to scared to say out loud sink in to him, to fully consider the possibility that Beth might never get her memories back. He knew it was possible, in fact it was more than likely that she would never be the Beth that he remembered but that didn't matter to him anymore. She was still Beth just different was all. He would rather have a Beth who was alive and didn't remember him than no Beth at all.

But still, would she remember? He didn't know, had no idea what to expect with an injury like hers. He isn't sure if he himself fully believes the words that come from his mouth next but he says them anyway, to remind himself as much as Glenn.

"Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith."

XxX

Her eyes snap shut at the words and Beth waits in the darkness for the panic to set in and take over her. Nothing comes and instead of a wave of distorted noises all she hears is the ragged sound of her and her _sister's_ breaths. After a moment Beth let her eyes flutter open, turning slightly so that she could inspect the stranger's face beside her in the hopes that she would see some of her own features reflected at her.

Maggie stared back at her, not questioning her even as the minutes ticked by. Beth could see very little physical resemblance between them. They both had the same slim form but Maggie's skin was tanner than Beth's own pale flesh. Their eyes were of a similar shape but different shades, Beth's leaning more towards blue than Maggie's green ones. Besides that, no matter how much she searched the older woman's features she could see nothing else connecting them.

No part of her seems to recognize her either, her face does not stir any memories lose in her mind as they sit in a steadily stretching silence. Mere seconds after Beth accepts the fact that she cannot remember even the slightest thing about this woman she sees a flash of pain cross her sister's face as she realizes what Beth had.

They were still strangers.

Beth opened her mouth, unsure of what to say or do. Part of her felt like she should apologize for not remembering Maggie but a larger, more stubborn part of her, reminds herself that had done nothing wrong and therefore should not apologize for it.

But before she can say anything Maggie turns her head away, staring off down the dark street as she whispered more to herself than to Beth. "Maybe one day you'll remember us."

Beth stirs at the admission, she had wondered and sometimes even hoped for the same thing herself. Part of her would love to have her memory back, to truly know who these people were so she could celebrate her return with them. A larger part of her was scared to regain her memories, scared that she would not like who she was and that she would lose who she had become. But the largest part of her was terrified that no matter what she wanted she would never get her memories back and would have to live with random sporadic flashes of her past showing up whenever they pleased.

It is her fear that she would never know what these people used to mean to her and her fear that they would give up on her as time passed and no real memories returned that made her ask the question, "What if I never remember?"

Beth was not sure what answer she was expecting but she had not expected the effect her question had on the woman beside her. Maggie's spine straightened and her shoulders set back and as she does this Beth suddenly sees the resemblance between them in the stubborn set of her features as she turns to look at her.

"It doesn't matter." Beth can hear the heavy layer of pain and guilt in her voice and somehow she knows that even with all of her memories intact she would not be able to fully understand the guilt with which her sister was looking at her. "If you never remember us, _me._" Maggie swallowed hard and blinked quickly to fight off tears Beth knew that she was simply to stubborn to shed. "It doesn't matter."

Beth opens her mouth to protest that of course it matters. Maggie might say it doesn't now but next week, or month, or _year_, when Beth still can't remember their parents or anything substantial before she was shot that it will matter very much to all of them then. That eventually Maggie would get sick of having to explain every little story to her, of telling inside jokes and being met with only silence. And after it became apparent that nothing was returning to her, well how long would any of them stick around after that?

Maggie must have seen some of her doubts on her face because she suddenly reached out, taking Beth's hand in her own as she whispered, "I already gave up on you once Beth." Her green eyes are swimming with tears as they stare at each other but none of them fall as she promises with a gentle squeeze of her hand.

"I won't do it again."

XxX

The sound of the door opening has Daryl nearly jumping forward to see which of the Greene sisters was coming inside. Both him and Glenn reeled back in surprise to see both of the girls walking in, Maggie looking wrung out and Beth looking as confused as ever but all together okay. There was no sign of fresh panic in her eyes as she looked at him, seemingly as unsurprised to find him waiting for her as everyone else was.

Glenn wrapped Maggie in a side hug as they went to join the others and Daryl watched in a surprising flicker of jealously as he pressed a kiss to Maggie's temple. He wished he could be as generous with his touches but all he could do was touch Beth's elbow, raising his eyebrows at her to make sure everything was okay.

Beth hesitated for just a second before nodding with a small smile and letting him lead her back to the others.

The room is to quiet when they enter and Daryl knows that Beth must be aware that they had all been waiting for her and Maggie to come back inside but she does not comment on it. Slowly the room begins to raise to its normal volume as people begin to pick up conversations. As everyone begins speaking Daryl leans down to whisper in her ear.

"Ya alright?"

She is much closer than he realized for he feels some of her hair tickle his face as she nods. "I have a sister." she whispered in return, turning to look up at him with eyes full of wonder. Daryl's heart seizes at the little bit of joy in her voice but before he could even think of anything to say in return Judith began to cry where she sat playing with her favorite toy of red plastic cups.

At her first cry half the people in the room immediately move to go to her, all of them far to used to being out in the open where any noise was an unnecessary risk. Even behind the safety of the walls people always jumped at her slightest sound. Rick, Michonne, Carl, and Tyreese were all moving towards Judith as the first cry left her mouth but in the end it was Beth who got to her first.

XxX

She thinks she is just as bewildered as everyone else in the room to suddenly find herself holding the baby.

She hadn't meant to do it, she had not even consciously thought to pick the wailing child up but when Judith started crying her feet had just moved.

The weight of her was surprisingly heavy as Beth settled her onto her hip, wrapping one arm around her back and holding the other one underneath her bottom. She couldn't remember ever having held a baby, she hadn't even met any children until she had arrived in the safe zone. But just like when she had shot Daryl's crossbow that afternoon her body could remember what her brain could not and she simply knew how to hold the child.

Even as she makes soft shushing noises Judith does not cease in her persistent crying. Although a small part of her just wants to pass the baby back over to Rick or anyone else Beth refuses. She pretends not to notice the way everyone is watching her, staring at her like she is taking some form of a test as she shifts Judith higher up on her hip. She starts to hum softly in the hopes that the sound will calm the baby down and as her cries lower to fussing Beth can't help the grin from forming on her lips.

She knows then what the child wants from her as she looks up at her with big tear filed eyes. Beth does not know where the words come from, she cannot remember hearing the song before but soon the lyrics are pouring out of her. Just before she starts to sing she wonders if she should feel embarrassed to sing in front of all of these people but the thought passes so quickly that she wonders if she had sang for them all before.

XxX

Just the sight of her holding Judith was enough to send Daryl's mind back to the prison. He found himself wishing, not for the first time, that Beth remembered them or at the very least the little girl she held in her arms. The girl she had risked her own life for to go back into that burning walker infested prison to save.

His thoughts were running so fast that when she started singing, so softly at first that it was barely a whisper, he didn't even notice. It was not until Judith's fussing had quieted to the occasional babble and the room had fallen into a serene hush that Beth's voice managed to break through to him.

"Well, he gave her a dimestore watch and a ring made from a spoon."

His own breath left him as he recognized the song, as he heard the echo of her own voice singing it behind dark prison walls.

"Everyone is looking for someone to blame but you share my bed, you share my name." he is barely able to tear his eyes away from Beth but he has to check, has to know that he was hearing this and that others could hear it to.

"Well, go ahead and call the cops you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops." Rick had settled next to Carl on the couch, both of them watching Beth sing to Judith in fascination. Michonne sat on the arm of the couch next to Rick and Daryl noticed the way she was gripping Rick's shoulder tightly. Daryl could see the memory of Beth singing this song before shining bright in their eyes as they watched her.

"She said baby, I still love you. Sometimes there's nothin left to do." Beth's sweet voice was still falling in his ears as Carol met his eyes from across the room, her face breaking into a smile as Beth sang. The others sitting near her were smiling to but they hadn't been there that night. They didn't understand the full power of this song.

"Oh you got to hold on, hold on. You got to hold on." Glenn met his eyes with a look of joy but Maggie could not tear her eyes away from her sister, tears dripping from her eyes unabashedly as Beth began to walk in tiny circles, still singing to Judith like they were the only two people in the world.

"Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to just hold on." Beth pressed Judith closer to her hip before taking her hand off her backside and letting the girl wrap her fingers around it tightly with a smile that told Daryl that while Beth not remember Judith, the little girl in her arms remembered her.

As Beth continued singing all Daryl could think of was the last time she sang this song, back when Merle stood watching from the doorway and her dad had stood bseide him. Back when, even though they had the danger of the Governor looming heavy over their heads, Beth had managed to shove that fear away from them even if it was just for the night. That night Daryl had felt the first stirrings of hope that they could beat the sadistic bastard who seemed hell bent on running them out of their home or killing them. At the time he had thought his hope stemmed from the compilation of seeing Andrea and his brother alive again and that Beth's song had simply given him the final uplifting he needed but now he knew that wasn't true. Now he knew it was simply Beth singing that damn song because he could feel it lifting his spirits again.

"I miss your broken-china voice how I wish you were still here with me."

As Beth walked in her small circles singing to Judith Daryl felt hope stir in his chest at the sight. Hope that someday, somehow, her memories would come back to her. No matter how slowly, or how broken up they were, one day Beth would get all of her past back. And until that day he would simply fill in the missing pieces.

"Hold on, hold on, you really got to hold on. Take my hand, I'm standing right here and just hold on."

XxX

As her voice drifted off into silence Beth finally realized that the crying she was hearing was not coming from the child she held in her arms. Slowly she lifted her head and realized that nearly everyone in the room was simply staring at her. She felt her cheeks begin to redden in embarrassment that quickly drifted to confusion when she realized that Maggie was the one crying and Glenn, who had his arm wrapped tight around her, looked like he was trying not to cry as well, although he looked like he wanted to out of happiness.

Turning her head Beth did a quick survey of the room, surprised when she realized quite a few people looked like they had seen a ghost.

Some of them looked fine of course, Rosita was leaning back into Abraham's arms and neither of them were even looking at her as they stared at each other. Father Gabriel was smiling at her and looking like he was about to start clapping but thankfully Noah, who was sitting next to him, reached over and pushed his hands down before meeting Beth's eyes with a grin.

Carol gave her a smile that Beth could not make sense of whether it was happy or sad and in chairs next to her Tyreese and Sasha were just simply watching her, although Tyreese's fingers were tapping lightly on his leg and Beth wondered if he had known the song as well and had been keeping time with her. Tara and Eugene stood a little bit away from them and they looked happy from the music although both seemed a bit confused by how everyone else was acting.

On the couch across from her Carl was leaning heavily against his father and Michonne was sitting on Rick's other side, her arm resting on his shoulder. All three of them were watching her with wide and sad eyes. Morgan stood leaning against the wall beside them and he simply shrugged at her, as confused by the strange atmosphere in the room as she was.

Finally Beth turned her gaze to Daryl's, biting her lip at the sudden twinge of embarrassment for singing in front of everyone. But the second their eyes met the embarrassment faded as quickly as it came. His eyes were locked onto hers with an intensity she had never seen in his gaze before.

The moment the thought occurs to her something strange happens. She is still looking at Daryl from across the room but she is also suddenly seeing him looking at her from a much closer distance, a jar in his hand and candlelight bathed across his face as he stared at her with just as much intensity as he was looking at her with now.

Beth blinked in shock and the vision was gone as quickly as it came and in that second she realized what it must have been.

A memory.

Her first memory of a face that was not covered in blood and walkers. A face that she already knew.

The face of the man standing before her.

The weight of it begins to sink into her as heavy as the child in her arms. Beth was still staring across the room at Daryl as the word slipped past her lips like a breath.

_"Oh."_

AN: the song was 'Hold On' by Tom Waits.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I'm sorry this chapter took so long.**

**Chapter Ten**

"You can't move the fucking fences!"

Daryl had to physically restrain himself from leaning across the large oak desk to grab the old man by his lapels. Douglas Monroe steepled his hands together on the desk, his eyebrows lowering as he glared across at Daryl.

"People are growing restless at the lack of space here. We are getting more and more residents every week and soon we will be out of houses to offer them." Douglas said placatingly, as though Daryl was a toddler having a temper tantrum. He looked about to continue on his spiel but Daryl cut him off.

"Then make people start sharing houses!" he leaned down lower so that he was staring straight into Douglas's narrowed blue eyes. "You have any idea how many walkers we've taken down out there the past few days?"

The older man let out a long sigh as he tapped his finger against his chin. "I am aware of the sudden increase but-"

"But nothin'!" Daryl cried pushing off the desk to tower over the man, crossing his arms over his chest with a glare. "We might have a herd comin' our way. You want them to find us with part of that wall down?"

The older man's eyes narrowed even further but thankfully he kept quiet as he thought over what Daryl was saying. Daryl kept his glare trained on him, silently cursing the oversight of his thinking that had caused him to be in this stuffy office so early in the morning.

"I suppose construction can be pushed back a few more days." Douglas finally said stiffly as he leaned back in his chair. "And we could have a few of the smaller groups move in with others to open up some more of the houses."

Daryl fought the sudden urge to roll his eyes as the man said these things like he was granting Daryl a gift instead of helping protect his community. "Good." Daryl grunted before turning to leave, his hand had just closed around the doorknob when the sound of his name stopped him. He cast a look at Douglas over his shoulder, the heat of the man's glare not effecting him even as he spoke in a dangerous tone.

"Dixon. Don't question my authority again."

That time Daryl didn't bother to hide his eye roll as he turned out the door.

XxX

The clinic had its own routine and Beth found that she fell into place very quickly. The most common injuries they saw were cuts and sprains, neither of which were very difficult to patch up. Major accidents were rare in the community and besides the man who had been brought in on the day Beth had agreed to work there she had yet to see anything of that caliber.

While she was happy that people were not being hurt the lack of incidents and the ending of the flu outbreak meant that she and the other aides were left with a lot of downtime. This would not have been a bad thing except that more often than not it left Beth alone with her thoughts which was one place she did not want to be right now.

It had been three days since the dinner with her family. Three days where every time she looked at Daryl she nearly held her breath in anticipation for another flash of memory. Three days in which the only memory she received came to her in her sleep and was of riding a horse bareback. She still wasn't sure if it was a dream or a memory.

As each day passed Beth began to realize that she had been right in thinking that telling others about the memories she was receiving would be a terrible idea. She would only get their hopes up when, in truth, she had yet to remember anything of real importance and the things she did remember she did not even fully understand. So she promised herself to tell no one about any of the flashes until she remembered something substantial, until not asking if it was a real memory or not was more painful then staying quiet.

Even though she would not talk to anyone about the memories Beth did have a sudden burning desire to find out more about her past. Meeting everyone had made her insanely curious as to how they had all gone from being strangers to family. She tried to ask everyone she saw at least one question a day but it was always hard for her to decide what to ask. Beth was not just trying to learn about her past from these people but to get to know them as was apparent to her from what she had been told that she had once thought of these people as her family. She wanted to get to know them so that maybe one day, even without her memories, they could be that again.

XxX

Even as the morning gave way to afternoon Daryl was still silently fuming up on his guard post. The old man who ran their small community did many things that helped the community grow and more importantly he had kept them all alive so far. But the man had only lived outside of the walls safety for a short period of time. Either he had not seen many dangers out there or he did not remember how to deal with them because he did not seem to understand the danger he would be putting the whole community into by trying to expand the fences until they were sure that the sudden influx of walkers they were facing was not a herd.

Daryl had already asked the runners to keep an extra careful eye out at the amount of walkers while they were out there. Not just for their own safety but for that of the town as well. Daryl knew what a herd could do to a place, even with walls. With Beth here he was finally starting to think that this place could one day be a home. He did not want to lose it to a group of walkers and Douglas Monroe's stupidity.

Thinking about Douglas only kept him angry so instead Daryl tried to think about the one thing that always seemed to calm him down, Beth. He had missed seeing her that morning since he had to go talk to Monroe and that fact only made him more annoyed at the man.

His walks with Beth were starting to increase in their length, now when he met up with her after work they would often walk around the community for a bit before he walked her home. It was Daryl's favorite part of the day if he was being honest with himself.

Not only was Beth starting to ask him more questions about their shared past but they would also often pass the time by talking about mundane things, such as how their days went. The easiness of the conversation never failed to surprise him with how much it felt like when the two of them were out in the woods on their own. When they were only talking about the present Daryl could almost forget that Beth didn't know about her past.

XxX

Rubbing her temples in the hopes that it would help dull the beginning of the headache Beth could feel forming she slipped out of the nearly empty clinic to begin her solo walk home. Denise had kept her even after the other aides had left so that she could do a quick check up of Beth's eye and hand. She had been staring at the eye chart for so long in the attempts to see more past the black spots clouding her eye that her head was beginning to throb.

She was coming out much later than usual and so she was not surprised to see that Daryl was nowhere to be seen outside. She felt a small pang of disappointment at the nearly empty street but she had not truly expected to find him waiting for her. Beth had just grown so accustomed to their daily walks that not seeing him at all that day filled her with a strange sense of discontent.

Her shoes made slight scrapping sounds as she headed down the stairs, rubbing her numb fingers as she walked and tried to hide her disappointment. It was just one day after all, she would see Daryl again in the morning. Whatever had kept him this morning had clearly not been an illness or she would have seen him at the clinic at some point in the day. Beth tried to remind herself that sometimes things simply happened and he must have been held up by something at his house, it was not as big of a deal as she was making it.

Sighing, Beth pushed a lose strand of hair behind her ear, shaking her head at her antics. She would see Daryl in the morning and she would stop fretting over him and the teeny flash of memory she had gotten in the meantime. Even though that seconds long memory was never very far from her mind.

The sound of her name drew her from her thoughts and Beth stopped to look back over her shoulder, surprised to see Maggie heading her way with a nervous smile.

Beth returned the smile with equal nerves, she had yet to spend any time alone with her sister since finding out about her. They had seen each other on the streets a few times and exchanged hellos but Daryl or Glenn had always been there as well. Beth had not yet been ready for anymore one on one time with Maggie. But her sister was stopping beside her now and Beth decided maybe it was time to get some answers to the question that had been bugging her for the past few days.

As the older woman fell into step beside her Beth began to fidget with the hem of her shirt. Maggie had just opened her mouth to say something when Beth cut her off. "What happened to our parents?"

A pang of guilt ran through her as Maggie stuttered to a stop as her eyes closed briefly. It was clear from the look on her face that she had not expected Beth to ask her such a thing when she had approached her. But even though she felt guilty Beth felt more curious than anything. She had been wanting to ask someone the question for the past few days, ever since the group dinner where the only blood family member she had was the older sister standing before her. Beth knew by now that they had to be dead. She had remembered her mother's death after all and the lack of her father in the town led her to believe the only possibility of his absence was death.

Judging from the look on Maggie's face how ever their parents had died was not a pretty story.

"They're gone." Maggie finally admitted, her eyes still shut. She opened them slowly to look at Beth, who met her eyes wearily at the suddenly exhausted look her sister was giving her. "We're half sisters." she finally said, causing Beth to nod slowly as she finally understood the lack of physical resemblance between them.

"My mother." Maggie let out a sigh as she shrugged. "She died when I was a kid. Then Daddy got married to your mom, Annette." Beth rolled the name around in her head, trying to connect it to the blonde woman whose death she had so briefly remembered.

Maggie looked about to continue on but a flare of curiosity had Beth suddenly interrupting her. "What was dad's name?"

"Hershel." Maggie bit her lip as another flash of pain crossed her face before she shook her head, raising her hand to push some of her short brown hair out of her face. "Annette had a newborn boy when she and Dad got married. Shawn."

"Shawn?" Beth whispered, staring up at Maggie who met her eyes with a look of sadness at the surprise in Beth's voice before she nodded. Beth turned her gaze down the to shirt whose hem she was still twisting in her hands so that Maggie would not have to see the dismayed look in her eyes at the knowledge that they had a brother.

XxX

He felt strangely off kilter like he had forgotten to do something incredibly important. The others kept casting him strange looks from the corner of their eyes and Daryl knew they could see it too. He just felt like something was wrong and all because of the simple fact that he hadn't seen Beth that day.

He had seen her almost everyday since she had miraculously come back into their lives, even if he didn't talk to her he had still seen her around town. Even though it had been weeks and he had accepted the fact that Beth was no longer a hallucination but a real living person it was hard for him not to see her. He had waited outside the clinic to walk her home but after nearly twenty minutes had passed he began to except that Beth must have left early for some reason so he had turned away and walked home alone.

"I talked to Douglas today." Rick said as he pulled out the chair next to Daryl and sank down into it, resting a babbling Judith on his lap. Daryl made a noise that was a cross between a grunt of acknowledgment and a sigh of exasperation. "He said you came to see him about the fences."

That time Daryl did sigh before he pushed back the chair and stood. Monroe had been plaguing him all morning he was not going to let him interfere with his night as well.

"Gonna shower." Daryl grumbled as he turned away from the table, ignoring Rick calling something out to him about houses as he headed for the bathroom the novelty of running water, no matter how cold, still not something he was used to.

XxX

They stood in silence for a long time as Maggie let her try to come to terms with what she had just been told. She had been expecting to hear her parents were dead, she had not anticipated being told she had a dead brother as well.

"When did they die?" Beth finally asked quietly. "Was it before all this?" She knew she did not have clarify that she meant the walkers and the end of a world that she no longer remembered.

Maggie drew in a sharp breath before shaking her head. "After." she whispered.

Beth felt an intense surge of guilt at the question she knew she had to ask next. She had to know for sure. She needed to be certain that the woman whose death she had remembered was in fact her mother. But despite her reasoning for asking the question she did not feel any less guilty as she whispered one word,"How?"

Her sister shook her head quickly at the question, whether because she wanted to spare Beth the answer or because she did not want to rehash the last few moments of their family's lives. "Beth, no. Its not-."

"Please Maggie." Beth pleaded, reaching out to grip her sister's arm tightly causing her to turn her head back to look at her forlornly. "I need to know." she could not tell her about the memory, not now when Maggie was looking at her with eyes full of such sadness

The pair fell into a loaded silence as Maggie likely debated over whether telling Beth would be a bad or good thing. She finally let out a long sigh before answering, her words tumbling out of her quickly as if the pain for both of them would be less if she could get the words out in a rush.

"Shawn and Mom got bit in the first days of the outbreak. We didn't know yet that the bite caused the turn but within a few days." she shrugged as Beth's hand fell from her arm. "They were gone."

Confusion filled her as she nodded for Maggie to continue. The woman's death who she remembered was not a bite that one could survive for a few minutes, let alone a few days. She had assumed, due only to the woman's blonde hair really, that she had been her mother. But if Maggie was telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie, then Beth had remembered someone else's death entirely.

As much as she wanted to question her sister, ask her if she knew whose death she had remembered in her sleep, she knew she couldn't. Not only did her sister look immensely sad to be talking about the deaths of their family members but Beth knew that telling her about the one memory would make her question if she had remembered anything else. She was not ready to have that conversation with anybody just yet.

"Daddy." Beth looked up at Maggie in time to see her blink back tears as she whispered. "He was murdered. This man he-" Maggie let out a shaky sigh as she shook her head and suddenly the guilt became to much for Beth.

"Its okay." she reached out for Maggie's hand again, squeezing it in comfort as her sister tried to fight back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes as she remembered the death of their father. Beth felt a surge of anger to whatever man had killed the father she might never remember and caused her sister such pain. "You don't have to tell me."

Maggie nodded gratefully, using her free hand to brush at the tears under her eyes. "If you want to talk about it later-" she began but Beth shook her head quickly. If she wanted to know more about how their father died she would ask someone else and spare Maggie this pain.

They fell into silence again, but this time it was not uncomfortable as they began to continue walking in the direction of Beth's house. As they walked an idea slowly began to form in Beth's mind and she bit her lip before turning her head to ask Maggie hopefully.

"Do you have any pictures of them?"

The second the words leave her lips she sees Maggie's face fall as she shakes her head. Beth fought to keep her disappointment off of her face as she nodded and excepted the fact that she might never know the faces of her family.

XxX

After spending a few hours tossing around restlessly Daryl had finally given up on the idea of sleep. His mind was simply to full of worries about the fences and annoyance that he had not been able to see Beth that day. The house was quiet, its other occupants all asleep in their beds, as he eased open the front door and stepped outside.

Taking in a deep breath of fresh air Daryl placed the cigarette he had traded a squirrel from his last hunting trip for against his lips. He used a match from the stash they had come into the town with thinking briefly of his old silver zippo with longing. Shaking his head he sunk down onto the top porch step and listened to the katydids chirping in some bushes across the street from him.

Even after he had smoked his far overpriced cigarette down to the filter Daryl lingered on the porch, unwilling to leave the coolness of the night air behind just yet. He had never been much of a sleeper, before the turn it had been because more often than not he was crashing on the couch of one of Merle's friends and they usually ended up getting chased out by angry girlfriends in the morning. After the turn, sleeping became a luxury that he could never seem to afford and the nightmares he had been plagued with his whole life had only increased tenfold. He had long since been able to tell when a night would end up being sleepless and this felt like one of them. Daryl saw no need to go back inside the stuffy house when he could enjoy the fresh air out here.

As the night wore on he found himself remembering with longing the days where he had not been cooped up in a house. As much as he enjoyed the safety of the walls here it was hard sometimes for him not to see it as a cage.

XxX

She had fallen asleep with thoughts of farmhouses and family in her mind and her dreams were filled of green rolling hills and windmills. Horses galloping through empty fields and chickens pecking at the ground in front of a worn looking coop. A dark haired boy in overalls leaning his weight against a rake as he laughed at something she could not see.

Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a gasp, her fingers curling into fists around her blanket as she cast frantic glances around the room. Beth closed her eyes tightly, trying to memorize every little detail of the boy she had just seen in her dreams.

_Brown hair, dark eyes, overalls, laughing. _

Beth knew who she thought she had just dreamed of but she didn't want to get her hopes up. She had been so sure after all that the memory of the woman being eaten by walkers had been of her mother but she knew now after talking to Maggie that it hadn't been. She couldn't just assume that the boy whose face had just come to her in her dreams was that of her older brother especially when she had just learned of his existence that afternoon.

But she wanted it to be so badly. She wanted to know what the other members of her family looked like more than anything. She would never get to meet them, never know the sound of their voices. Maggie had no pictures, no one in their group did, all she had was her own memories that she could give Beth and Beth wanted more than that. She wanted to know their faces because she knew them, not because she had been told how they looked.

She wanted to believe she had just seen the face of her brother but she did not want to think that only to find out again that she was wrong. This time she needed to be sure. She had to know. Staying quiet this time was not really an option.

Beth pushed the blankets off of her and nearly tripped in her haste to get to the door. She simply had to find out whose faces she had seen in her dreams, had to know if they were really memories like she assumed. She just had to know and there was only one person she trusted enough to ask.

XxX

The sound of feet hitting the pavement caused Daryl to stand in a rush, his eyes peering through the nearly black streets to see the danger someone was running from. Instead he saw only a pale, wild eyed blonde girl running straight towards his front porch.

Daryl quickly stepped down from the porch reaching Beth just as she stumbled to a stop at the edge of his lawn. His hands reached up to grip her forearms as he continued to peer in the darkness for the danger pursuing her.

"What's wrong? Are you okay? Is Morgan hurt?" he grunted, checking her over desperately in a search of blood, whether her own or someone else's.

Beth shook her head, reaching up her hands to grip his as she peered up at him. The weight of her gaze finally caused Daryl to look her in the eye. She did not look scared which he found strange considering she had just run across the town barefoot to his porch in the middle of the night.

"Beth what happened?" he finally asked, trying to keep his voice soft so as not to frighten her in her already frantic state. His mind was going haywire with possible scenarios that would have caused her to run over here. He was imagining walkers breaking through the town, someone attacking her in her house, Morgan being injured and needing help, Beth being hurt somewhere he could not see. In a matter of seconds he had thought up tens of situations, each one worse than the one before. But none of the things he considered prepared him for the words that Beth panted out between her gasps of air.

"I think." Beth paused as she shut her eyes tightly, seeming to steel herself before she whispered. "I think I remembered my brother."

XxX

"What?" he was staring at her wide eyed, his fingers curling tighter around her arms as Beth bit her lip. She was suddenly overcome by an intense fear that she was overreacting over what would turn out to be nothing more than a dream of a face her mind had created. Perhaps she had wanted to know what her brother looked like so badly that her brain had created a face for her.

"I could be wrong." she mumbled shrugging as she stared down at the ground, finding she was suddenly unable to look Daryl in the eye as she explained in a rush. "I had a dream about a boy and Maggie told me about Shawn earlier so I thought it might be him and." she paused to take a deep breath before looking up at Daryl who was still staring down at her with his mouth slightly open in shock.

"Well you met him didn't you? At my farm?" she pleaded, desperately needing to hear confirmation or denial of whose face she had really dreamed.

A look of pain flashed across Daryl's face briefly but Beth still saw it and her shoulder slumped in immediate defeat. She could tell by looking at him that she had been wrong in assuming he had met her brother. It seemed he had died before Daryl's group arrived at her family farm.

"Oh." she paused to clear away the sudden lump in her throat before continuing. "I was just hoping- I didn't want to tell Maggie. In case I was wrong or-"

"Beth." Daryl's voice cut her off midramble, his hands tightening around her upper arms as he shrugged. "I saw a picture of him, on your fridge."

Her heart began to beat faster as Daryl rose one his hands to push his overgrown hair out of his eyes as he looked at her. "Tell me what he looked like. I can tell you if it sounds like Shawn."

XxX

His heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that Daryl nearly missed Beth's quiet voice when she began to speak.

"He-he had dark brown hair and eyes." she wrapped her arms around herself, whether because she was cold or because she was trying to protect herself from whatever answer he was about to give her Daryl couldn't tell. "He was wearing overalls and he was laughing at something." Beth her lip before shrugging her shoulders lamely and looking up at him. "That's all."

Daryl closed his eyes as he tried to remember the picture of the boy he had seen briefly in one of his few times inside of the Greene farmhouse. Glenn had been with him and felt the need to point out the boy and the woman who was Beth's mother. The woman whose reanimated corpse he himself had put down merely days before.

He may have only seen the picture briefly but for whatever reason it had stuck with him, nearly all the photos on that damn fridge had. Daryl didn't know why, maybe it was because of how strange it was to try and connect the people in those photos to the walkers he had helped put down. Hell, maybe it was because he had never seen so many photos of a happy family, let alone seen photos taped to someone's fridge before. Whatever the reasoning he remembered the faces in those photos and judging by her description Beth did too.

He opened his eyes again so he could see her face as he nodded. "Sounds like him."

The smallest of noises left Beth and she rose her hands up to cover her mouth but not before Daryl could see the wide beaming smile stretching across it.

XxX

That morning when she had woken up Beth had not even known that she had once had an older brother. Now not only did she know of his existence but she knew his name and even his face.

She could not hide her smile any longer and Beth dropped her hands to her sides to stare up at Daryl who was looking at her with a look of disbelief and wonder in his eyes. He was handling her remembering something a lot better than she had expected of any of them. He was not pressing her for more details on what she remembered about Shawn or how the memory had come about. He wasn't even asking her if she had remembered anything else. Maybe he wasn't asking because he was simply to scared of what the answer might be.

Beth took a deep breath as she took a step around him before sinking down onto the porch steps, certain that if she kept standing she would either start jumping around or faint from excitement. Daryl looked back at her with a brief flicker of confusion before he sank down beside her.

"Do you have any siblings?" Beth asked curiously after they had sat in silence for a moment. Her mind was still reeling with the knowledge that she had remembered Shawn.

"Older brother. Merle." Daryl sighed as he reached up to run his hand across his beard. Beth found she could already recognize his look of sadness as he continued quickly. "He's dead."

"I'm sorry." Beth whispered suddenly reaching over to place her hand on his forearm. Daryl turned his gaze to her then and he met her look of empathy with a quick pat on her hand on his arm.

"Was a while ago." he muttered, clearly trying to get off the subject. Beth nodded once as she squeezed his arm, trying to let him know without words that if he ever wanted to talk about it she would listen. It was the least she could do after all. Daryl constantly listened to her and was always patiently answering even the smallest of questions. Besides, she wanted to get to know him better too.

Beth suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of guilt that she was always asking Daryl to tell her about her past but never telling him about the things that she remembered. She didn't even fully understand the things that she had seen but she was unwilling to talk to anyone about them in fear of how they would react. But Daryl was handling her remembering her brother far better than she had expected of anyone, perhaps he could handle hearing about the rest of her flashes of memory as well.

It was obvious to her that Daryl had known her for a long time and he had known her very well. She had once known him too, she knew that from the brief memory she had of his face. Beth had several questions about the things she had seen that she thought were memories and since she didn't feel comfortable going to anyone else that left her with one option.

She twisted her hands together as she debated over what she was about to do. Finally she whispered nervously, "Daryl can you keep a secret?"

He turned his head to regard her with a look of confusion before he nodded slowly. Beth took a deep breath before reminding herself to be brave and continuing.

"I've been getting these." Beth paused to think up the right word, "Flashes." She turned her head to look up at him as she whispered, "I'm not sure but I think they might be memories."

XxX

Memories. Beth was getting memories.

Daryl can barely wrap his mind around the idea. No matter what he had told himself about keeping hope and faith in her he had not honestly been expecting for her to regain any of her memories, at least not anytime soon.

And yet here she was telling him she had received not one but multiple memories. His voice comes out hoarse as he asks desperately, "Like what?"

Even as he asks he knows it doesn't matter, not really. The fact that Beth was remembering anything at all was a miracle as far as he was concerned. He didn't dare let himself hope that she had remembered anything about him, that would simply be to much to hold out for.

Beth turned to stare down at her hands as she mumbled. "Its nothing big and I don't know what causes them." she shrugged helplessly before looking back at him, her blue eyes wide in confusion. "They're just flashes really." She seemed to be trying to get Daryl to understand that she had yet to remember anything vivid or important but the fact that she had remembered anything at all was important to Daryl. He nodded for her to continue, nearly holding his breath as he waited for her to speak.

"One of them was of this woman. She was blonde so I thought she was my mom but now." Beth let out a deep sigh before resting her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands. "Now I'm not so sure."

She doesn't speak for a long moment and Daryl began to wrack his brain for what woman Beth might have thought was her mother. It could have been anyone really, someone he had never even met perhaps. But it also could have been someone he had so with his mind pulling up memories of Andrea Daryl pressed Beth to continue.

"What did you see?"

She continues speaking to the ground as she whispered. "A blonde woman." she drew a quick breath before whispering, her voice surprisingly steady as she finished. "Her throat being ripped out by walkers."

A flash of pain rips through Daryl at that. Of all the things for Beth to have remembered that was one of them. He had not seen what she was talking about himself but he knew enough to know the only person it could be. He had spent so little time with the woman himself that the thought of Beth's memory being of her had never even crossed his mind. It should have of course. He knew how close they had been, nearly every time he had seen Beth on the farm the older woman was somewhere close by. And he knew from their time alone together, where Beth would sometimes fill his sullen silence with dull chatter just to have some form of noise that she had thought of the woman like a second mother.

"Patricia." he sighed, causing Beth to lift her head from her hands to look over at him in surprise. Daryl held her eyes as explained to her. "She was a friend of your family." Daryl suddenly wished that he could tell Beth more, that he had spent more time with Patricia so that he had more to offer Beth about her. "Nice woman." he finished lamely.

Beth was quiet for a long moment as she took all of this in. Daryl doesn't want to interrupt her thinking, of her acceptance of yet another person she might never know anymore about then their name and their face, but he finds he cannot stop himself from asking.

"You remember anything else?"

XxX

"Oh. Yeah." Beth shook her head as she tried to ground herself into the present. She had been whispering the word Patricia in her mind in the hopes that it would shake some memory lose but nothing happened.

"I remember holding a spoon engraved to DC, riding a horse and burning some pages in a fire." She spoke quickly, as if by saying them fast Daryl would not focus on how little there actually was to each memory. Daryl was still staring at her intently like he was trying to memorize every word and suddenly Beth found herself reaching forward and gripping his hand tightly.

"You promise not to tell the others right?" she whispered, knowing even before Daryl nodded in agreement that he wouldn't. Somehow Beth was certain that he would never tell anyone anything if she asked him to keep it between them.

"Promise." he whispered before squeezing her hand.

"Its just that I don't want to get their hopes up if-" Beth finds she cannot finish the sentence, somehow afraid that saying it out loud will cause it to happen. But still Daryl is nodding and Beth knows without asking that he understands what she was saying. She didn't want anyone to know she was remembering even the smallest of things in case it turned out these were the only kind of memories she would ever have. Brief things that made no sense and showed her very little about her past.

Daryl was still staring at her intently, waiting for her to tell him about anything else she had remembered. Beth found herself wanting desperately to tell him that she had seen his face, that she knew by more than just everyone else's words that she had known him once but Beth found herself biting her lip. She could not get his hopes up either and telling him that would certainly do that.

"I remembered a tub with 'little ass kicker' written on it." Beth whispered, her blue eyes searching Daryl's for any sign of disappointment as she lied to him. "That's all."

If he was sad to think that she still did not remember even the smallest thing about him she could not see it. Daryl simply tightened his hand on hers before he whispered, "This is good Beth."

The smallest of smiles is on his mouth as they stare at each other. He must be able to see the look of disbelief in her eyes at him thinking her getting such few brief memories was a good thing because Daryl whispered again."Its something."

And Beth tore her eyes away from his then, certain in that moment that he would be able to see her lie in them. That he would know she had remembered something about him, a fact that she was not quite ready to share. She was to close to admitting it aloud anyway and Beth knew that doing so would only raise his hopes, perhaps higher than she could reach.

They drifted into silence together, the chilly night air making her shiver. She knew she ought to leave, to go home and try to get some sleep but her body was simply to wired to even contemplate such an idea. Daryl looked to be in no hurry to head inside either but as she shivered again he cast her a look from the corner of his eye before slowly untangling his fingers from hers.

Beth looked over at him, certain that he was going to stand and tell her to go home or that they should go inside so she nearly jumped in surprise to see him lifting his arm up as if to place around her. For a second they both froze, his arm hovering a few inches above her shoulders.

After a moments pause Beth reached up for his hand and pulled his arm down around her. The weight of it felt completely new yet somehow entirely familiar and the sudden warmth had her scooting closer to him.

They sat in companionable silence as the night wore on and soon Beth was letting her head fall to rest on his shoulder before she drifted off to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Before she had even opened her eyes Beth was overcome with the strangest sense of deja vu. Cracking her eyes open she waited for her sight to adjust to the darkness of the room before she was able to recognize it as the front room of the Grimes's house. Running her fingers over the frayed blanket covering her she couldn't help but wonder if waking up on this couch was going to become a habit of hers as this was the second time she had done so since meeting her family.

As she was thinking this the memory of why she was waking up on this couch hit her and she closed her eyes as a wave of panic rolled over her.

She had told Daryl about her memories and for all she knew he had already told the others about them while she slept. The second she thought this she diminished it with a shake of her head. For reasons she could not even begin to understand she trusted Daryl. If he said he would not tell the others then he would not tell them.

Letting out a small sigh of relief Beth sat up, rubbing a hand over her eyes to clear the sleep from them. She was alone in the room and judging by the small amount of light seeping through the window no one else would be awake yet. Shoving the blanket off of her legs she stood with the idea to find Daryl but before she had barely even gotten to her feet he was walking into the room.

He was wearing different clothes than the night before and Beth could see part of his crossbow where it was strapped across his back. For a moment neither of them spoke but then Beth gave him a small smile before turning back to the couch.

Grabbing the blanket she began to fold it, suddenly unable to look at him as she asked softly. "Did you carry me in here last night?"

The question stirred something in her thoughts but before she could fully grasp it Daryl's voice drew her attention. "It was cold."

Beth tried to hide her smile as she set the folded blanket back on the couch. For some reason the thought of him carrying her filled her with a sense of joy but still, "You could have woken me."

She turned to face Daryl then and his blue eyes held hers with a weight she could not even begin to comprehend as he whispered. "Don't mind carryin' you."

Beth knew there was something more to his words than what she was understanding but she did not feel she should ask. Nodding she went to shove her hands into her pockets only to remember that she was still clad in the worn pajama pants she had found in her house upon arrival.

"I should go change for work." she mumbled, wanting to get off the streets before anyone saw her wondering around barefoot in pajamas. That would only lead to questions and rumors she did not want to have to deal with.

Daryl nodded as he turned towards the door, opening it for her to walk through first. "I'll walk you."

Beth suddenly understood why he was dressed so early in the morning.

XxX

The walk to Beth's house was silent but in a good way. If it weren't for the houses they walked past Daryl could almost convince himself that they were back out in the woods again, just the two of them against the world.

He offered to wait for her to change but Beth waved him off, stating that she could find her way to the clinic on her own. Before he could even wonder if he should feel hurt by that comment Beth was saying she would see him after work and giving him a smile before heading up the steps to her house.

For once it was easy to keep thoughts of Beth from distracting him at work as he shot down walkers and tried to decide if they were from the same group as he had been seeing the last few days. Some of them were so ragged and decayed he knew that they had been dead for a long time and had simply fallen in with the group of recently deceased walkers he had been seeing on and off recently. By the time his shift was over he had taken down eight walkers and his quiver felt looser than it had in a long time. While the people who cleared the bodies away from the wall tried to salvage as much ammunition from the kills as they could they were not always able to keep his home made arrows from breaking as they removed them from skulls.

The thought of making new arrows drifted from his mind as Beth approached him from the clinic. As she did so the thoughts that he had been to distracted to focus on for very long hit him like a punch to the gut. Not only was Beth slowly gaining flashes of her past but she did not want anyone else to know about it. Daryl found the fact that he was the only person to be trusted with her secret both a blessing and a curse. He was happy not to be in the dark on this, knowing that Beth was remembering anything at all gave him hope that she would one day know all of her past. A small part of him was also happy to be the person she trusted the most to keep this secret. But another part of him felt guilty that he could not share this news with anyone else. That everyone else in their group would have to keep on thinking Beth only knew what they told her. He would not lie to himself and say that he was not tempted to confide in Rick or Carol but Daryl knew that no matter how hard it was for him he would tell no one about her memories.

It was not his secret to tell after all and even though Beth was walking towards him with a smile he knew that as hard as all of this was for him it was a hundred times worse for her.

XxX

She was so consumed by her thoughts of the night before that she almost missed it when Morgan began to speak.

"Monroe spoke to me in his office today."

It was the concern in his tone rather than his actual words that had Beth looking up from the corn she was pushing around on her plate.

"Oh?" Beth finally asked as she struggled to place the name. As Morgan began speaking she suddenly remembered the older man she had met briefly upon their arrival. Douglas Monroe, the man in charge of running their small community. He had made very little impression on her in their short time together so it was no wonder why it took her so long to picture his face. Since Beth was not one for socializing she did not know many of the people in the town. She only knew the patients she had seen at the clinic as well as her fellow workers and the family she was slowly trying to reclaim her part in.

"He had some interesting things to tell me about the current population size." Morgan was watching her closely and she found herself nodding to prompt him to continue as a ball of worry began to form in her gut. "The way the population is currently growing they don't have enough space to house any new arrivals."

Beth slowly lowered her fork back to the table as she took in Morgan's carefully delivered words. He had not chosen this topic for dinner conversation lightly. Morgan was the type of man who always made sure what he said was important. If he was taking the time to tell her about this, and Douglas had taken the time to tell Morgan, that could only mean one thing.

"People are going to move in here?" the words barely made it out of her suddenly dry throat and Beth quickly took a sip of water to hide the surge of panic that was beginning to course its way through her veins. Morgan and her would never be allowed to live in such a large house with just the two of them, it made no sense to the community structure. They had only been given a house away from others because of Beth's illness upon arrival. If she had been well they would have placed them in a house with other occupants. At the time the idea only caused Beth a small amount of unease. But now that she was beginning to grow used to the life she was growing here the thought of sharing her home with strangers caused her hands to curl into fists in her lap as she struggled to gain control over the wave of panic now rolling over her.

Beth had grown to foster a deep distrust for strangers. Perhaps it was a combination of having very few memories of the life before she was shot and the fact that even without memories she still knew that people were incredibly dangerous. Whatever the case she found it hard to trust new people, the fact that she had trusted Morgan enough to travel with him in the beginning was still a mystery to her. She was already trying to reconnect with the strangers who were her family and she was only able to do that because she felt secure in the faith that they had not always been strangers. But for people she had really never met, unremembered or not, to share a house with her, Beth didn't know if she would ever sleep again for fear that she would not wake come the morning.

The sound of Morgan saying her name repeatedly finally pulled her out of her raising panic long enough to look across the table at him.

"We have another option." the briefest flicker of uncertainty crossed his face as Beth began to imagine what other choice they could possibly have. The only other option she saw was leaving the town completely. It was odd how an idea she had once considered her only course of action now filled her with dread. She did not know her family well enough to know if they would follow her and Morgan out into the uncertain world beyond the town's walls. If they left she might have to leave all of them behind. She would never get to know her sister or figure out what the memory she had of Daryl meant. Beth braced herself for Morgan to tell her his plans for them leaving so she nearly slid out of her seat in surprise as he spoke.

"People can move in here or we can move in with someone else."

XxX

The soft knock on his door drew his attention away from the crossbow bolt he was shaping. Daryl looked towards the open door curiously before nodding for Rick to come further into the room. The other man seemed a bit hesitant to approach him and Daryl knew it had to be because of whatever reason he had come in here and nothing to do with the weapon in his hands.

Well, probably nothing.

"Morgan came by earlier." Rick stated slowly, running his hand over his beard wearily as Daryl carefully sat his knife and the wooden arrow he was shaping down on the floor at his feet.

Maybe this would be easier for both of them if he wasn't armed. Daryl knew all to well that if Morgan had come to see Rick and he was being told about it then it was about Beth as well. He did not know what to prepare himself to hear, maybe Beth had told Morgan about her flashes of memory as well and he had turned around and told Rick.

The second the thought entered his head Daryl found himself mentally shaking his head. He may not know the man as well as Rick and Beth did but he knew enough to know that he would not betray Beth's trust like that, no matter how difficult it was to keep quiet about it. And Daryl knew all to well how difficult it was.

He was still trying to figure out what they could have talked about when Rick stated with a sigh, "Douglas is trying to downsize the amount of space people are taking up. He wants to free up some houses."

Daryl nodded quickly. He knew this already, he'd been there when Douglas decided to do it after all. What that had to do with-

_Shit._

He realized before Rick even opened his mouth what he was going to say.

"He told Morgan him and Beth need to let the next group to arrive live with them." Rick said slowly, shaking his head at the idea. He knew how uneasy Beth was around most people but it seemed that Monroe either did not see or did not care how difficult a situation he had just placed all of them in to.

Daryl's hands clenched on his knees and he fought down the urge to rush to Monroe's house and demand he change the order. "Beth won't agree to that." he finally grunted, looking up at Rick and waiting for him to confirm what they both already knew.

He went cold suddenly as he realized what that meant. If Beth did not agree to live by the rules here she would be forced to leave the community. She might even be gone already.

He was already on his feet when Rick's hands suddenly shot out and grabbed him by the arms. It was only the lack of panic in his brother in all but blood's eyes that stopped him from shoving him away and running out the door.

Rick's voice was calculatedly clam as he reassured him. "That's why Morgan came to me."

XxX

Beth was still trying to wrap her mind around his words when Morgan continued, his voice calm and unhurried as if his soothing tone would be enough to calm her still racing heart.

"I already spoke with Rick, just in case you chose that option. He said we could move into any of the houses their group is in."

Beth managed to pull herself from her confusion and panic long enough to whisper, "Houses?" she had known of course that not all of them lived in the house she had woken up in that morning but she had not spared much thought to where everyone else resided.

Morgan nodded, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he realized that at least a small part of Beth was able to focus on what he was saying.

"The group lives in three separate houses. Four actually since the boy Noah lives with his mother and her house mates."

"Noah's mother is alive?" Beth asked in surprise. She had not met the woman yet and having both Noah and Daryl confirm that she met him at the hospital she had assumed that he had fallen in with her family because he had lost his. She felt a surprisingly strong surge of happiness course through her at the thought that Noah still had blood family left alive too.

Morgan nodded as he ran a hand across his nearly shaved head before continuing. "Noah said she wanted to come to the dinner last week and meet you but she thought you would have enough to deal with that night."

Beth felt a pang of gratitude for the woman as she motioned for Morgan to continue about the housing dilemma they were facing. The longer he talked the easier it became for Beth to overcome her panic.

"You've been to Rick's house of course. He lives there with his kids, Daryl and Michonne. At the end of the street Carol, Eugene, Tyresse, Sasha, and the preacher all live. On the next street over your sister and her husband, Tara, Rosita and Abraham share a place. All the houses are pretty full but Rick said everyone would gladly make room for you if you chose to move in with any of them."

Beth was so busy trying to make sense of the living arrangements that the meaning of Morgan's last sentence was almost lost on her. Her brow furrowed as she looked across the table at him in confusion.

"Just me? You don't want to come with me?" Her voice broke on the last word and Beth tried to hide the hurt she felt at his abandonment.

Morgan shrugged before looking at her. "Houses all seem pretty full. Don't want to impose on any of you."

"You won't be." Beth shook her head quickly, knowing the moment she spoke that she had made her decision. Neither choice appealed very much to her but when it came to living with strangers she would choose the ones she had once trusted and loved over people she had truly never met before. But the idea of facing that alone terrified her.

She leaned across the table to grip Morgan's large calloused hand in her own. "I want you to come with me." Beth bit her lip and forced herself to maintain eye contact with Morgan despite the twinge of embarrassment she felt as she mumbled. "You're sort of my best friend."

The title feels strange coming out of her mouth but Beth knows it somehow fits. The man before her was the first person she had ever trusted in this version of her life and she knew that she would not have made it to this community without him. Even if she had she would not have been able to brave facing her family without him standing by her side.

Morgan squeezed her hand once before pulling away. While he does not return her words Beth can see the emotion he is either unable or unwilling to hide as he looks at her. It takes her a moment to place the look but after a moment she recognizes it as the look she has seen Michonne giving Carl and Tyresse giving Judith. It was the look you gave someone you loved like your own child.

Beth knows then without Morgan even opening his mouth that he would be joining her in whichever house she chose.

XxX

He was so busy trying to wrap him mind around what Rick had just told him that he nearly missed the soft knock on the door. At the sound of it he pushed to his feet, remembering at the last second to step around the half formed arrows scattered on the floor.

Daryl was still in the hallway when Michonne pulled the door open but he was just able to see Morgan's face from where he stood. Heart in his throat Daryl closed the gap between him and the door, the breath he hadn't noticed he was holding slipping out past his lips as Beth followed after Morgan into the house. As she does so Daryl's eyes flicker immediately to the backpacks slung over both of their shoulders. The sight of them fills him with a surge of dread and hope. Dread that they were simply stopping to say goodbye before leaving the town altogether but hope that they were there for something else entirely.

"Can we stay here?" Beth's voice seemed impossibly loud in the sudden stillness of the room. "Your house seemed like it was the emptiest and..."she trailed off but Daryl thought he knew what she was unable to say. She didn't want to have to live with people she didn't know. He forcibly shook off the part of his brain that sounded remarkably like his brother as it whispered that was still what she was doing.

"Of course you can." Michonne said quietly, gifting Beth with one of her rare smiles. Daryl could see some of the tension leave Beth's shoulders at that although he did not know if it was Michonne's smile or her words that did it. She mumbled a thanks as the door was shut behind them.

Beth looked at the couch and Daryl remembered placing her on it just that morning. He had not suspected when he did that that she would keep sleeping on it. The thought caused him to stir immediately as he began to wrap his mind around the situation they were now in. Beth shouldn't have to sleep on the couch and she wouldn't if he had any say in it.

"Beth can have my room." his voice was quiet but with no one talking it seemed loud. Beth immediately began shaking her head, a protest already on her lips when Carl spoke.

"It makes more sense if she takes mine. I can stay with Dad."

Rick nodded, clapping his son on the shoulder in gratitude. They had all shared worse conditions so fitting six people and a baby into a four bedroom house was not going to cause any problems.

"I'll take the couch." Morgan offered shaking his head before Rick could even move to offer him something else. "I've slept on worse trust me. Beth take the bedroom."

Daryl couldn't help wondering if it was a request or an order. She looked a bit guilty as she nodded acceptance before turning to thank Carl, who grinned at her widely before running off to clear his stuff from the room.

The five of them stood awkwardly in the doorway for a moment before Rick headed further into the room to sit on the couch that Judith sat on the floor next to. She hit two plastic cups together with a giggle completely unaware of the drastic change that had just occurred.

After a moment everyone drifted after Rick into the room, seemingly at a loss for what else to do. Michonne sat next to Rick on the couch and Daryl couldn't help but wonder if Carl wouldn't be getting a room to himself soon enough as he noticed the lack of space between them. Morgan settled in the chair across the room and after a moments pause Beth sat down on the floor across from Judith reaching forward wearily to grab one of the cups on the floor.

Daryl couldn't help but smile at the sight of them, Judy looking at Beth with a grin as she realized she had a new playmate. He leaned against the wall and watched as Beth tried to show the little girl how to stack the cups into a pyramid but the girl only seemed interested in knocking them down.

"Have you heard when the construction crew is scheduled to move the fence?" Rick asked, looking across the room at Morgan. Daryl wasn't sure if the conversation was brought up out of actual curiosity or a desire to end the nervous silence that filled the room.

Morgan shrugged. "Next couple of days." Daryl remembered then that he worked construction on the same crew as Abraham. "We only have to move part of one wall so it shouldn't take more than a day."

"Why are you moving it anyway? Wouldn't it make more sense to build the whole wall and then take the piece in the way down?" Rick asked curiously, rubbing his hand across his beard as he thought over how he would handle the situation. Not for the first time Daryl couldn't help but wonder how Rick was actually handling not being the leader. Truth be told he would rather have Rick Grimes be in charge of this community than the man who ran it now.

Hell Daryl would rather have a lot of people running this place instead of Monroe.

Morgan shook his head, smiling when Judith let out a high pitched giggle as she knocked another cup pyramid down with her tiny fist. "We need the materials. The walls need to be thick to do any good and the run teams haven't found anything we can use. Gotta use what we got."

Rick looked like he was about to comment but Michonne cut him off. "We haven't had much chance to look. Been to busy trying to find medicine and food." she said it calmly but Daryl knew her well enough to hear the small twinge of tension in her voice. She did not like the idea of her job being questioned.

Morgan opened his mouth, whether to apologize or argue Daryl didn't know because Rick leaned closer to Michonne then and began to try to convince her to tell them the types of food that she had brought in on the latest run.

He started to pay very little attention to their conversation as he watched Beth build a higher tower for Judith to knock down as she giggled. As he watched them, Daryl began to realize for the first time what her and Morgan moving into the house meant.

He would be able to see Beth on more than just their daily walks, she would be on the other side of the wall from him. The next time she remembered something she would not have to sprint across town in the dark to question him about it.

Daryl could see her whenever he wanted.

As if she could hear his thoughts Beth suddenly looked up across the room at him with a smile. He was just contemplating joining her and Judith on the floor when Carl skidded into the room with a grin.

"Come on Beth! I'll show you your room."

XxX

She can't help feeling surprised by the lack of anger in the boy as Carl leads her down the hallway to the room that she was now taking as her own. She felt a surge of guilt that she had kicked him out of his space but if he minded she could not tell past the smile that covered his face.

"The bed is kinda lumpy but you get used to it." he said joyfully before he walked across to the open window and began to show her the small block of wood he had lodged between the frame and the sill to keep the broken hinges from shutting it. Beth listened with half an ear as she looked around the light blue room as Daryl joined them, watching them quietly as he leaned on the wall next to the door. The soft voices of the others could be heard just under Carl's excited voice as they talked in another part of the house.

Beth joined Daryl against the wall as she watched Carl explain all the little inconsistencies of the room with a smile. He was half turned away from her as he explained the way the closet doorknob had to be turned just so or it would creak when it opened when an image hit her with such force her knees nearly buckled,

_She walked into a dark room, forcing herself not to cringe away from the barred door of the cell as she looked at the dirty bunkbeds set against the wall. Carl was at her heels, a head shorter than the boy she now knew and both of them were covered in a thick layer of dirt and grim._

_She let the heavy bags slip from her hands and turned to sit on the mattress of the lower bunk with only the slightest hint of disgust. "Pretty gross."_

_"__Yeah remember the storage units?" he said with a faint laugh._

Beth stumbled under the weight of the memory, for she knew without a sliver of doubt that was what it was. She had never seen anything so in depth before and if it weren't for the hand suddenly holding her up she thought that the impact of it would have knocked her off her feet. As it was she found it hard to breath as she caught her footing underneath her and mumbled that she had stumbled on the rug in an attempt to ease the concern in her companions' faces.

While Carl looked satisfied, if a little worried, by her explanation Beth could tell that Daryl was not at all convinced. Seemingly done with giving her a tour of the room that was now hers Carl headed back out into the rest of the house, calling over his shoulder for Beth to follow him. She managed to catch her breath long enough to tell him she'd be there in a minute before her eyes drifted to those of the man still clutching her arm.

XxX

The silence between them seemed to stretch on endlessly and Daryl was sure Beth could hear the pounding of his heart through it. He knew she had not stumbled, she had been standing still when suddenly she was almost falling to the floor beside him. He had his own theories for what had happened but he fought to keep his hopes in check until she confirmed it herself.

Beth bit her lip as she stared at him before she slowly pulled her arm out of his grip and headed to the door of the bedroom. Daryl opened his mouth to protest, to ask her what had happened and if she had gotten another memory like he suspected, but he closed his mouth with a snap when instead of walking out the door Beth cast a quick glance down the hallway before shutting it softly.

His mouth suddenly went dry for no reason that he could decipher.

Daryl knew it was not because they were alone. He had been alone with Beth hundreds upon hundreds of times. For months she had been the only company he had. The only other person he had spent so much time with alone in his life was his brother. Daryl had even spent time with Beth alone since she lost her memory yet somehow this felt different.

He decided it wasn't the fact that they were alone in a bedroom together but the fact that Beth had shut the door on everyone else. He knew already, of course, that Beth sought him out more than anyone. Even if he hadn't been aware of that before she had proven it last night with her confession. Seeing her shut the door on everyone else in the house just confirmed it more.

"I remembered something." Beth whispered, her voice free of doubt as she looked up at him with wide eyes.

Daryl's breath escaped him at the words, that was what he had thought happened but hearing her confirm it still made his chest tighten. He wanted more than anything to ask her what she saw but he knew better than to push her. He found himself hoping for a wild moment that she had remembered something about him but he quickly shook the thought off. He was just happy that Beth was remembering anything, whether he was in it or not.

"Were we ever at a prison?"

Daryl had been so lost in his own thoughts as he tried to guess what Beth could have remembered that at first all he could do was blink in surprise at her question. He had not been expecting that and the selfish part of his brain was the first thing to react as he realized that if Beth remembered something at the prison that meant she might have remembered something about him.

Before he could consider that thought for very long Daryl found himself nodding, hoping Beth would tell him what she remembered soon before his hopes got to high for him to pull back down.

She nodded once, drawing in a slow breath as she accepted this information. Surprisingly she did not ask him how they had come to be in a prison but Daryl knew that those questions would come soon enough. Right now she seemed to be trying to accept whatever she had just remembered.

His resolve finally broke and he opened his mouth to ask her what memory had just returned to her when her gaze drifted to the bed behind him and she spoke softly.

"I was with Carl in a prison cell. He said something about storage sheds." Beth shook her head and Daryl felt his spirits drop a little that once again Beth had not remembered him.

Before he could entertain that thought very long the memory she had gotten hit him. He wasn't there for it but the fact that she had remembered something about Carl while with Carl gave him hope that the more time they spent together the higher chances she had of remembering something about him. About all of them.

Maybe her moving in here was the best thing that could have happened for her memory.

XxX

Finally she finds herself alone, the others having drifted off to their own spaces as the night wore on. Daryl was the last to leave her, even after they went out to join Morgan on the tour Carl was giving him he had stood by her side until finally she sought out the solitude that was her unfamiliar room.

Beth fingered the fraying edge of the quilt covering the bed and found herself wondering briefly what had happened to the person who had made it. She shook the thought off quickly, she already had enough unanswerable questions about her own life she did not need anymore. She curled up into a ball at the floor of the bed and let the shaft of moonlight steaming through the open window provide her with enough light to examine her new room in silence.

All of her possessions fit into the frayed backpack that sat on top of the wooden dresser in the corner but Beth did not move a muscle to go unpack it. Her mind was to busy trying to process the events that had led her here, to this room and this house.

Part of her was terrified that she had made the wrong choice, that she should have just taken her chances with whoever might have ended up moving in with her and Morgan. But another larger part of her was glad that she had chosen to move into this house. She been there less than three hours and already the most vivid memory she had received had come back to her. Perhaps being in such close quarters with these people would help aid in the return of her past. In any case it provided her with more opportunities to ask questions.

Despite all of the good things that moving in with her family provided Beth could not help but worry that it might end up being to much for her damaged mind to handle. Beth stared through the darkness at the wall across from her bed and hoped that she had not just made a terrible mistake.

XxX

Even though the electricity was working that night Daryl chose to keep his light off and instead use a few candles to keep the darkness at bay.

Slowly he eased open the drawer of the little table that sat beside his bed. He had not opened it since he had angrily slammed it shut in the first week after they had arrived in the safe zone. Back when he had hidden the contents away in the hope that if he did not have to see them he would forget that they were there.

Yet there it lay, looking as unchanged as the day Carol had handed it to him after she had found it while cleaning out the black bag that had been given to them at the hospital. At the time he had been so consumed in his grief that he had never even bothered to check the contents of the bag, in fact other than the object he now clutched in his hand he had no idea what else had been inside of it.

The bone handle was cold to the touch having spent so long locked away in darkness. There was a rusted smudge of dried blood at the end of the blade and Daryl eased the knife out of its leather sheath to wipe it clean on the end of his shirt.

Once Carol realized who it must have belonged to she immediately passed it over to Daryl without a word. She had been with him during his frantic hunt for Beth. She had seen him fall to his knees to cradle what he had thought had been Beth's corpse. Carol knew that the knife would have meant nothing to anyone else but Daryl had clung to it like it was Beth herself.

He never used it, never even took it out of the sheath until now. He drifted into a habit of holding the bone handle, because at the time he had thought it was the closet he would ever get to holding Beth again. When he did start seeing his visions of her he often tried to convince himself to give the knife to her.

He never managed to get the words out, partially because he knew that no matter how much he wanted it to be, the Beth he was seeing wasn't actually real. The knife was also the only real thing he had left to hold onto of Beth. When they got to the safe zone and he stopped seeing Beth he promised himself that he would give her the knife if he could see her for even just a few minutes more.

But no matter how many hours he spent alone in the woods she never returned to him and the knife began to feel like a weight to heavy for him to carry. One night after spending five hours hunting in the rain hoping for just one brief glimpse of her ponytail he had torn it angrily from his belt and shoved it inside the drawer. He had had not had the strength to open it since then.

A small part of him must have been hoping that once he realized Beth was alive she would eventually ask for her knife back. But Daryl knew now that wasn't likely to happen, even with the memories she was getting back. Standing, he cast a quick glance at the wall that was all that was separating them as he realized that he could now keep his promise.

XxX

The knock on her door was so quiet that Beth did not stir at the first one. When the second knock came, only slightly louder than its predecessor, she lifted her head from her arms and slowly edged her way off the bed. The stiffness of her muscles and the darkness of the room made her wonder how long she had been sitting huddled at the edge of the lumpy mattress.

Taking a deep breath she opened the door slowly, finding she was not at all surprised to see Daryl standing in the doorway looking unsure and awkward as he stared down at her.

For a moment neither of them spoke, Daryl's eyes drifting behind her to take in the dark room yet still made bed. He did not question if he had woken her, despite the late hour. Just as he seemed to know she had not been sleeping, merely sitting in the dark, she somehow knew that he could tell.

"Came to give you this." he finally grunted before thrusting his hand forward as if he needed to do it quickly before he lost his nerve.

Beth blinked in surprise before looking down at the object in his outstretched hand. She had not really been expecting anything in particular and perhaps that was why she was not surprised to find the object was a small knife.

She reached forward gingerly and took it from his palm. She meant to ask why he was gifting her the knife but instead the words that slipped out of her lips were, "I can't take this."

And Beth knows as soon as she says it that she can't. The knife is to nice. The bone handle was warm to her touch from Daryl's own hands and despite how much she wants to strap it to her hip to replace the slightly rusted knife that she'd been using since she left the hospital she knows she would feel to guilty if she took Daryl's weapon. She already felt bad enough for kicking Carl out of his room she did not want to add anything to that.

"It was yours." Daryl shrugged almost sheepishly but Beth could still hear the pain in his voice as she failed to recognize yet another thing from her past. She wants to ask him why he has waited until now to give it back to her but she is more curious about how he had come into possession with it after what they thought was her death.

For the first time Beth let herself truly begin to wonder how the man standing in her doorway was connected to her. They were not related she knew that much. Even without knowing that Maggie was her only blood relative alive she would never have considered that Daryl was connected to her in that way. The pull she felt to him was something else entirely than the one she was beginning to feel with her sister. No, what she felt with Daryl was unique to only him and something she could not quite explain, even to herself.

She knew they had known each other for a few years, that much was clear to her although she did not know the context of their relationship. Were they friends or-

A small gasp escaped past her lips unbidden as she looked up at Daryl. His brow furrowed at the shock that was likely painted across her face. Beth struggled to wipe her features blank even as her mind and heart began to race at the realization she had just stumbled upon.

It explained everything: why she always felt so comfortable around him even in the beginning, why his touch did not panic her the way others sometimes did, why he had been the one to have her knife in his possession even after they had believed she was dead. Why she had remembered his face bathed in candlelight.

Her mind came up with only one explanation and Beth found the idea of it did not cause her to panic. Instead a strange surge of excitement ran through her as she stared up at the man before her and realized the truth.

Daryl and her had been a couple.

XxX

Beth was staring at him with the strangest look upon her face. It was not the look that had crossed her features when she had remembered Carl but still something seemed off as she looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Are you okay?" Daryl asked softly as he tried to decipher whether it was fear or shock in her eyes. Beth blinked once in surprise before nodding quickly, a smile pulling up her lips.

"Yeah." she looked down at the knife in her hands and he felt a flash of clarity. She must have remembered something about the knife, or maybe killing a walker with another knife. But if she had she did not say anything as they continued to stand in the doorway.

Daryl couldn't help but remember another time he had stood in the doorway to her room, even if her room at that time had been a cell. But this time he had come to bring her a knife not the news of her boyfriend's death and this time Beth did not wrap her arms around him no matter how much he wanted her to.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Breakfast was a subdued affair as everyone tried to adjust to the newness of their situation. Daryl sat across the table from Beth who kept shooting him looks when she thought he wasn't looking. He wasn't sure why exactly she kept staring at him but his brain was so hazy from lack of sleep that he couldn't imagine any other reason except for how strange this move had to be for her.

He had gotten very little sleep the night before having spent the majority of it staring at the wall that separated their bedrooms. Having her in such close proximity again was making his mind dredge up memories of their time alone in the woods together. He found himself thinking of things he had not thought of in a long time even though he had been sure that he had replayed every moment of their time together countless times in the weeks after her 'death'.

Having her so close again made him think about how there had once been a time when the only sleep he got was at her side even though in the beginning when they first fled the prison he found he could not sleep beside her. It had very little to do with his trust of Beth's capabilities to keep watch, even then when they were little more than strangers with very intimate details of the others lives he knew that Beth would be able to keep him safe. He just could not close his eyes without seeing the faces of all the people they had lost painted across the back of his lids. He knew Beth was faring just the same. They had ended up tracking through the first night, neither one of them willing to sit down and close their eyes just yet, but by the time dusk fell on the second evening they were moving around like walkers themselves. Daryl made Beth sleep first, thinking that it would help her if she got some rest. Instead she had laid stiff by his side while he pretended not to notice her sniffing as she cried for the father she had just seen butchered before her. For the first few weeks they were on their own neither of them slept very well but as time wore on Daryl found he could only sleep if he knew she was close by. It made the time between her absence and the hospital even more rough and the time after that all the more unbearable.

Daryl had thought that having only a wall between them now might help him sleep better at night but instead memory after memory assaulted him all night. He remembered even the smallest things that he never even spared a second thought for since they happened, not even after the events at the hospital. As he lay there in the dark bemoaning the few feet of distance between them he suddenly remembered the way she smiled at him as she passed him some of the gum she had scrounged up in the country club. He kept seeing the way she grinned at him ever so slightly as she passed him a jar full of moonshine on repeat long after the house around him had gone quiet.

XxX

Beth knew now that she had to tell Daryl about the memory she had of him. She simply could not avoid it forever, Daryl needed to know. And if they had truly been romantically involved like she believed then he deserved to know.

However, knowing this and acting on it were two different things. Beth wanted to talk to him about it, she had spent her whole day at work planning out different ways that she could approach him with the subject yet when he joined her on their walk home (Beth could barely wrap her head around the fact that they walked to the same house now) she had stayed quiet.

She wanted to tell him she had remembered something about him, truly she did, she was just afraid of how it would change their relationship. Even if they had once been a couple she was not ready for that, at least not yet. She could not lie to herself and say that the idea of being with him did not interest her. Beth had never really thought about it until the night prior but Daryl was an attractive man. But more importantly he was kind to her and he trusted her, even enough to let her shoot his crossbow. (Beth may not have known much about the man but even she could tell that that was a big deal). The knowledge that they had once been a couple did not send her into spiraling fits of fear, instead it made her incredibly curious. They did not seem like a conventional couple and she wanted to know everything about them. How did they go from two strangers on a farm to being in a relationship so strong that even without her memories Beth knew that she could trust Daryl wholeheartedly?

Beth knew that the only way she was going to get the answers to these questions was if she talked to Daryl about it. But she was not yet ready to admit that she knew they were together, if she told him that he might expect more from her although Beth highly doubted it. Daryl would never ask her for more than she was willing to give and she knew that.

So while she was not yet ready to acknowledge their past relationship Daryl at least deserved to know she had remembered something about him. Beth spent the entirety of the evening trying to gather her nerve to tell him but every time she headed for her door a crippling sense of doubt would overwhelm her. As much as she wanted to tell him she could not quiet the voice inside her head that kept telling her he would only demand more of her. That if he knew she had one memory of him soon he would except her to have all of them. And if she could not meet that demand, well Beth supposed it wouldn't matter then what type of relationship they had had. He probably wouldn't be around much longer after that.

By the time she was finally able to quiet her doubts night had long since fallen. But in the end the thing that got her going out her door was not trust in Daryl but anger at her own fear.

XxX

He was almost asleep when a soft tapping on his door roused him. Stifling a groan into the pillow Daryl shoved the blanket off of him, stumbling over it as it tangled around his legs on the way to the floor. Cursing, he finally managed to untangle himself and yanked open the door with a glare.

His anger immediately melted away as he took in the sight of Beth looking up at him anxiously.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" there was a twinge of guilt in her voice but behind it Daryl could hear the nerves as she shifted from foot to foot.

Daryl shook his head no even as Beth looked behind him and saw the tangle of his blankets on the floor.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly, drawing her gaze back to him.

Beth ran her hands up and down her arms as if she was cold before fixing him with a heavy stare. "Can I talk to you?"

His brow furrowed in confusion but Daryl still took a step back, letting Beth step into the room. She walked past him cautiously before perching on the edge of his bed. Daryl swallowed hard and took a step towards her but Beth shook her head.

"Can you shut the door?" she asked nervously, her hands twisting together in her lap.

Turning away from her Daryl shut the door softly, grateful for the moonlight that kept the room from being in total darkness. Cautiously he sat down beside her on the bed, making sure to keep a foot of distance between them as he was still uncertain of how comfortable she was with his proximity.

The silence stretched on for a long moment. Daryl was unsure of what to say or do in this situation. His mind was still trying to fully wake up and he could not figure out what she was doing here. He had just decided she must have remembered something else and wanted to talk to him about it when Beth began speaking, her soft voice laced with guilt as she whispered.

"I lied to you."

Daryl looked over at her quickly although Beth would not meet his eyes, choosing instead to stare down at the floor. His hands clenched the sheets as he tried to figure out what she could have possibly lied to him about.

Before he could think of anything Beth spoke again, her words coming out in a rush. "I did remember something else. You asked me the other night and I lied but the truth is." Beth dropped her head into her hands as she drew in a long breath.

Daryl's mind began to race as he watched her. She had told him several memories that night so why would she keep one a secret? Unless, of course, it was about him. He shook his head quickly not wanting to get his hopes up but the idea lodged itself firmly into his brain even though that was the very reason Beth was not telling anyone else about the memories. He tried to keep his hopes off of his face, certain that if Beth knew what he was thinking she would soon not want to confide in even him about the memories.

Beth did not seem to be able to go on so carefully Daryl reached over and placed his hand on her upper back. She stiffened at his touch but did not pull away as she lifted her head from her hands to look over at him.

"You can tell me Beth." Daryl whispered, his throat suddenly tight as he whispered. "You can tell me anything."

She simply stared at him for so long that Daryl began to worry that she had changed her mind, that she was not going to tell him what she had come in here to say. He closed his eyes in disappointment just when she began to speak, her voice soft as she admitted. "I remembered you."

His eyes popped open in surprise and he saw Beth staring back at him with equal disbelief at her statement. His heart began to pound faster as her words began to sink in and Beth looked away from him then, her hands playing with her hair as she spoke quickly.

"It happened at the group dinner and it was really just a second but..." She trailed into silence again while Daryl tried to guess what memory she could have gotten of him. She had waited so long to tell him, was it because she was afraid of how he would act upon hearing of it? Or did she remember something that made her scared of him? Was the only memory she had of him the time they had screamed themselves hoarse in each others faces?

Daryl knew how her memories were returning, most of them were very brief flashes of images and with the exception of what she had remembered about Carl yesterday she often did not remember any conversations. If she had remembered him yelling at her without the words to go with it, well it would make sense for her not to want to talk about it with him. She might have misinterpreted the moment as them simply fighting instead of knowing that that moment was when Beth had dragged him screaming out of the mess of pain and guilt he had fallen into after the prison.

Finally he could no longer handle the suspense. That might not have even been the memory she had gotten so he could be worrying himself sick over nothing. He just had to ask, "What did you remember?"

Beth shook her head before looking back at him nervously. "I'm not sure. It was just a second."

She seemed to be trying to downplay the moment as if she was afraid she was letting Daryl down by it not being a big intense memory. She didn't seem to understand that Daryl was ecstatic she had remembered anything about him, no matter how small.

"It was dark but there were a lot of candles. You were holding a jar with a spoon and." Beth trailed into silence as Daryl began to tear through his own memory for the image she had seen. He had a feeling he knew the memory she was speaking of but that memory was so heavy for him that he could not let himself hope that it was the one thing she knew of him from before she had shown up on his doorstep.

"You were looking at me like..." Beth couldn't seem to find the words and Daryl found himself reaching forward to grab her hand where it still played with the ends of her hair, causing her gaze to drift back to him.

"Like what?" he whispered intensely, his heart beating a bruise against his rib cage at the mere knowledge she had remembered anything about him at all. But he had to be sure it was the moment he thought. The moment he had not let himself relive since the first few days of her death.

Beth bit her lip as they stared at each other, her voice barely above breath as she admitted, "Well...like that."

He knew for certain then that it was the same memory he thought it was and like her that night all words failed him but one. "Oh."

XxX

Daryl handled hearing about the memory far better than she had expected. Beth had expected him to ask her more questions about it or to see if she had remembered anything else but he had done neither. He seemed to have understood the flash she had seen even though Beth herself still didn't. As much as she had wanted to press him for more information about what she had seen she didn't. She would have time for that later but at that moment Daryl had needed time to accept that she had remembered something about him.

They had spent a large part of the night simply sitting next to each other in the darkness of his room as they both tried to understand how this had changed their relationship. Not only was Daryl the only one who knew she was getting any memories back but now he knew that she had remembered him too. Since he had reacted as if the memory was real Beth knew for certain now that she truly was seeing memories and not just images her mind had made up.

As they walked to work with Morgan Beth tried to focus on what he was saying about moving the fences that morning but her mind kept replaying her few memories instead. The longer she stayed here the more flashes of memories returned to her. Whatever the bullet had damaged in its path through her skull seemed to be repairing itself with time. Beth finally allowed herself a small amount of hope that one day she would remember everything.

XxX

The memory Beth did not fully have kept replaying through his mind on repeat throughout the night and long into the morning even after he took his post on guard. That moment was one of the most painful ones for him to remember during her absence and it had grown even worse after he had thought she had died.

What Beth did not realize was how important that moment was for him, for both of them. That was the moment she had started to realize what he himself had just accepted the night before. That was the moment when Beth realized that she had been what changed his mind about believing there was good people in the world. Because of course there were good people out there if Beth Greene was still alive. That was why the memory became physically painful in the weeks after she had 'died'. It just meant that Beth had changed his mind for nothing. It didn't matter if there were good people out there because they were only going to die.

Just like everyone else.

But now that he could look back on the memory without the haze of pain Daryl remembered it for other things. It was the last good moment he had of her for so long. It had been the moment where he had very nearly told her the feelings he was beginning to realize he had for her.

It had been in the coffin that Daryl had realized them. As he lay there and watched her fingers glide over the piano while her soft melodic voice filled the room Daryl finally allowed himself to consider that the way Beth made him feel was not the way a friend made you feel. What he felt for Beth Greene was so much stronger than anything he had ever felt in life. He wasn't willing to put a word to it at the time but he knew he could no longer lie to himself and claim it to be friendship. And while he was not a superstitious man Daryl later thought that realizing that in a coffin had doomed their relationship from the start.

XxX

While she had decided not to ask Daryl about their relationship just yet Beth had made no such promises to herself about asking anyone else. That was how she found herself washing cloth bandages next to Carol and struggling to find the right way to phrase her questions without letting on to the fact that she already knew about her and Daryl being a couple.

Carol seemed to know that Beth had something on her mind because she did not say anything as she wrung red tinted water from the cloth. They had to clear the material of the worst of the mess before they boiled them in hot water. Beth was sure it wasn't the most advanced system but it was effective.

"I heard you moved in with the Grimes." Carol finally broke the silence when it became clear that Beth was not going to be speaking anytime soon.

Beth nodded quickly, wondering quietly how fast that news had spread. She did not fail to notice that both Michonne and Daryl were included under the Grimes name but she was not surprised. She was beginning to suspect there was more to Michonne and Rick's relationship than she was seeing and she had already seen how close Daryl and Rick were. In a weird way they were both Grimes.

"Everyone doing okay with that?" Carol asked softly, turning away from Beth to give her a moment to compose her features at the question.

Beth smiled in appreciation for not being singled out in the other woman's question. She knew too that it was more than just Carol being polite, she truly did care and want to know how the others were fairing.

"It's different." Beth admitted with a shrug. "But I think we'll be o-"

She cut herself off mid word as her and Carol both turned as one to the open window where the unmistakable sound of screaming had begun to drift through.

XxX

All sound seemed to tunnel into one never ending scream of terror. Daryl immediately turned towards the sound, his finger hovering over the trigger of his bow, but even from his high vantage point he could not see the source. Judging from the direction they could only be coming from one place; the section of the wall they were moving.

Silently Daryl began to curse Monroe for not waiting as well as cursing everyone on the team who did not bother to question his judgment. His skin itched with his urge to jump over the wall and go help them but he did not move out of fear that if he left his post walkers would converge on this section as well. He was still contemplating going to help the others anyway, abandoned post be damned, when he heard someone yelling his name.

Daryl turned just long enough to see Paula wave him forward, barely even hearing her cries telling him to go help and that she would manage his section. Swinging his bow onto his back he sat on the edge of the platform before making the six foot jump to the ground below.

He bit the inside of his mouth when he landed and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth as a shock wave ran through his ankles and knees. Daryl stumbled once before he got his footing back underneath him and sprinted towards the sound of the fighting.

XxX

It was clear from everyone's reactions that they had been in a situation like this before. Rather than running outside to go help whoever was screaming the aides immediately began pulling bandages out of cupboards and placing various medical equipment onto counters and trays.

Beth lingered in the doorway of the main room, unsure of what to do as everyone bustled in a hurry around her. She cast a glance at the door and was just debating running out to offer her assistance out there when Carol was back at her side and grabbing her upper arm tightly.

"Beth." The older woman's eyes were as full of pain and fear as Beth knew her own eyes had to be. "We'll be more useful in here."

Shaking her head Beth took a step towards the door. She could no longer hear any screaming and she did not know whether that was a good thing or a terrible omen of what was still to come. "We have to help them." she whispered, shaking Carol's hand off her arm.

Carol gripped her by the shoulders then, forcing Beth to look back at her as she fixed her intense gaze on her. "We will. In here."

She did not let go until Beth nodded reluctantly in agreement, rushing into the room to help the others set up supplies. Mere minutes later the door opened with a bang and the groaning of a man in pain filled the building.

Speeding into the hallway after Denise Beth watched in open mouthed horror as Tara stumbled inside, her arm wrapped tight around a man Beth had never seen before.

"He's been bit!" Tara cried above another groan.

The word sent everyone into motion, but not the rushed frenzy Beth had been expecting. Denise barked for James to go fetch the other two doctors before motioning for Tara to bring the man into one of the bedrooms. Beth watched with eyes wide in horror as they turned, her eyes glued to the gaping bloody hole where a part of the man's tricep was now missing.

She was in such a shock that she barely noticed the other people beginning to rush into the clinic although she did notice when Tyreese came in pressing a bloody cloth to his face. Beth forced herself to head in his direction despite the growing terror she was beginning to feel.

As she reached him Beth forced her terror and panic down, she needed to be calm if she wanted to help anyone. She quickly pulled one of the wheeled tray tables to her side as she motioned for Tyreese to sit in the chair behind him. Adjusting his hold on the cloth he pressed to his face Beth forced herself to quietly ask the question she was dreading the answer to.

"Is it a walker scratch?"

"No. No." Tyreese let out a moan of pain as Beth reached forward to apply more pressure on the wound. "I was putting up a sheet of metal on the wall when the walkers came. Dropped it to grab my weapon. It caught me on the way down."

Beth nodded, a surprisingly strong sense of relief washing through her at his words. A cut she could heal, but a walker's scratch on his face would have been the end. The bleeding seemed to be slowing but it had not yet reduced enough for her to stitch it.

"There still a lot of walkers out there?" she asked quietly as she pulled the cloth away from his face to clean his wound. She gave him a small smile in sympathy as he winced.

"Not to many." Tyreese flinched as she dabbed the top of his cut with a cotton ball drenched in rubbing alcohol "They had it under control. Told the injured to get inside before the smell of blood drew more."

"Smart." Beth whispered, leaning closer to get a better view of the cut. Despite the blood it did not appear very deep. It had missed his eye by less than an inch but Beth did not bother to tell Tyreese that he was lucky. Everyone still alive was lucky.

"Daryl's idea." Tyreese winced again but Beth barely noticed as she looked at him with wide eyes. She had not realized Daryl was a part of the fighting but upon hearing it she found that she was not incredibly surprised. Her heart clenched in fear for him but she forced herself to shove it away. She had to focus and help the people here. Still she opened her mouth to ask if Daryl was okay but Denise calling her name from across the crowded room stopped her.

"Beth! I need you!"

Standing quickly Beth looked around for another aide but before she was barely on her feet Carol was there, taking the bottle of rubbing alcohol from her hands. Beth made her way as quickly as she could to the room where the bitten man now lay groaning on the bed. Tara was gone but in her place was one of the other doctors, Peter, who barely spared Beth a glance as he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.

Beth looked at Denise questioningly before her eyes landed on the saw in the woman's hands.

"We need you to help keep him down."

XxX

Sending the injured back inside the walls was a tough call but as Daryl reached for an arrow only for his hand to come back empty he knew it was the right one. At least now he did not have to worry about protecting people who were defenseless as he swung his bow into the skull of the corpse heading towards him.

He heard Abraham let out a shout that sounded almost like a war cry and if he had had the breath Daryl would have told him to shut the hell up. They did not need to draw any unnecessary attention towards themselves, there was a reason they weren't using guns after all.

The numbers around them dwindled and Daryl let his bow fall from his hands, pulling his knife out from the sheath on his hip. It slid easily into the skull of the walker reaching for him with mangled hands and Daryl found himself wrinkling his nose at the smell of the bodies. He had been inside the walls for so long he had almost forgotten the stench of the dead.

Panting from exertion Daryl straightened, his eyes scanning the woods and surrounding area quickly. It seemed the walkers had all been put down. Morgan nodded at him gratefully as Daryl picked up his bow, swinging the strap back over his shoulder. A few steps behind him Abraham laughed, as if they had just been playing a game rather than fighting for their lives and the lives of those inside. Daryl turned to the sound in time to see the girl, Holly he thought her name was, standing next to Abraham roll her eyes at his actions, bending to wipe her blade clean on the shirt of a walker by her feet.

The two he had told to stay by the gap in the fence were still there, Katy's knife held so tight in her hands that even feet away Daryl could see her knuckles had gone white. The boy, whose name Daryl didn't know, had a hammer clenched in one fist although Daryl saw that his other hand was wrapped around the but of the gun strapped to his hip.

Daryl was just about to snap at him to put the gun away when the groans of more dead filled his ears from behind him.

XxX **Trigger warning: this next section includes a graphic amputation**  
>Beth stood frozen in the doorway unable to tear her eyes away from the man moaning on the bed. He tried to twist away from Peter as the doctor placed a rag over his mouth. The man kicked roughly for a few moments before he went still.<p>

Peter saw her horrified stare as he looked up. "Cholorform. Not the safest method but we use what we've got." he beckoned for Beth to come further into the room and somehow she manged to get her feet to corporate. Peter passed her the rag as well as a small brown bottle. She could just smell the faint stench of the sweet smelling liquid from the distance with which she held the rag in her gloved hand.

Denise approached the bed then, checking the tourniquet tied just below the man's shoulder. Beth could not tear her eyes from the sharp toothed saw in her hand even as Denise told her. "We need you to dose him if he starts to wake up."

Beth shook her head in terror. This was all to much for. She could deal with the blood and the cuts and even broken bones but this? She was on no level prepared for this. Her fear was heavily evident in her voice as she whispered, "I can't."

"You have to." Denise looked up at her then, her blue eyes full of guilt as she admitted. "The others are more useful out there than you. They have more experience. I've never seen you flinch at blood before Beth. Don't start now."

Closing her eyes Beth drew in a few quick breaths, making sure to breath through her mouth so the scent of blood would not keep lingering on her. She knew this man would die if they did not amputate soon and Denise was right, she would be better in here than the others. Not trusting herself to speak she nodded once to let the doctors know she was ready to help.

Positioning herself at the head of the bed Beth clutched the rag in one hand while she held the man's uninjured arm with the other. Peter had been called out to help another patient leaving Beth to face the grizzly sound of the saw biting through the man's flesh alone. As much as she did not want to see the mess of muscles, blood and tendons that had once been his arm Beth had to keep her gaze looked downwards to watch the man's face for any sign of him waking.

As she did so the soft sounds of Denise grunting as she dragged the saw back and forth suddenly faded out and instead all she could hear were people crying out and she was back in the dark prison she had seen in her memory of Carl. An old man lay on one of the dirty bunk beds, his face pale and his right leg ending just below the knee.

Shaking her head Beth tried to focus on the present, her fingers curling around the man's shirt as Denise sawed through the last few pieces of flesh attaching his arm to his body. The man's face was still unmoving and Beth was grateful he had been placed into drug induced sleep. She could not imagine facing this with him awake.

Another flash assaulted her then and Beth whimpered as the horrific memory hit her.

_She was back in the hospital and everyone was yelling around her. She had her hands on the shoulders of a woman not much older than her and she could see the bit mark on the woman's arm. Dr. Edwards was there and Beth watched as he began to amputate the woman's lower arm completely ignoring the girl as she began to buck and scream._

"Pass me the tray Beth." Denise's voice pulled her from the memory with a start. Casting one last look at the man whose life they had just saved from the walker's infection Beth quickly moved to help Denise close off his arteries so they had not just saved him only to have him bleed to death. Even as she worked part of her mind was still locked on the two visions she had just seen wondering who on earth those people possibly could have been.

XxX

The dead just kept spilling out of the trees. It was taking all they had to keep them at bay. Daryl longed for his crossbow but without arrows it was currently useless, in fact he had abandoned it on the corpse littered ground so that he could move easier with his knife.

More than once he found himself pressed back to back with Morgan or Abraham as they tried to end the influx of walkers headed at them. Daryl could just see the end of the herd in sight which was enough to keep him going even as every muscle in his body begged for him to stop.

They had sent the boy back inside for reinforcements leaving Holly and Katy to kill any walker that manged to get past them before it got through the walls. At one point Daryl had been forced back as two walkers attacked him at the same time. Ducking under the outreached arms of one he had managed to kick the knee of the other in. Before he managed to stab it the other walker was on top of him and knocking him to the earth. In seconds both walkers were falling on him. He had manged to catch one by the shoulders but the other was heading straight for his neck when suddenly its blood was splattering on his face as a boot slammed into its skull. The weight of the walker above him was lifted and Daryl struggled to his feet in time to see Holly slip her knife into its head. He managed a nod of gratitude before throwing himself back into the fighting.

By the time reinforcements showed up there was only a handful of walkers left to deal with. Which was a good thing since it seemed the boy had only grabbed the first people he had seen to come out and help them. One of the girls looked to be Carl's age and Daryl cursed when he realized that the only weapon she was holding was a gun.

"Don't!" he gasped out as she rose the gun to shoulder level, her shaking hands causing the gun to jump. He ignored the walkers that turned in his direction at his voice. His next cry for her not to fire was lost as the gunshot echoed through the clearing and a searing pain ripped through him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

His hands drifted to his stomach in surprise as blood began to seep out through his fingers. Screams filled his ears but they were not coming from him as he slowly began to sink to his knees. Before he could reach the ground, however, an arm was wrapping tight around his shoulders and yanking him painfully to his feet.

"I don't think so Dixon." Morgan's deep voice filled his ears as Daryl struggled to get his feet underneath him. He could still see a few walkers shambling towards them but Abraham and Holly were on them before they could get any closer to the pair as Morgan began to drag him forward.

"We should help them." he groaned, trying to push away from Morgan even as the man tightened his grip around him until Daryl was certain he was going to leave bruises. The pain in his stomach was threatening to knock him unconscious but Daryl fought it back, his urge to help protect the others stronger than even this pain.

"No way. We gotta get you to the clinic." Morgan hold on him was stronger than Daryl would have thought possible as he half dragged him to the fence.

Daryl wanted to protest but he was beginning to feel lightheaded and keeping his feet underneath him was becoming a harder and harder task as Morgan led him past the girl who had shot him. She could only stare at Daryl in wide eyed horror, the gun laying abandoned at her feet. Daryl felt like he should yell at her but he knew that she had not shot him on purpose. But more than that yelling at her would take more energy than he had at the moment. He knew she would hear about it later from everyone else anyway.

They passed the fence and Daryl stumbled as Morgan pulled him over a curb. His vision went black for a moment and even though he could hear Morgan talking to him the words began to blur together as they hobbled down the street. Shouts filled the air and suddenly another arm was wrapped around his shoulders and Daryl didn't have to put nearly as much effort into standing as he had before. Turning his head to see who was holding him seemed like to much work as his head lolled on his neck. The last thing he saw before everything went dark was his blood falling from the wound on his side to coat the street below.

XxX

They had just left the room after patching up the stump where the man's arm had once been when the front door crashed open. Beth just caught sight of Glenn entering sideways before her gaze landed on the bloody man propped up between him and Morgan.

Her breath left her in a gasp as her feet moved towards them before she could even think. She could see blood coating Daryl's side and her heart stopped in terror. As much as she wanted to ask if it was a bite she could not get her mouth to form the words to the question she so terribly dreaded.

Thankfully Carol had no such problem as she sped down the hallway with her. "Is he bit?!"

"Shot!" Morgan cried not even looking at Beth as she pressed herself closer to the side of the hallway to allow them more space to push past her to the room Denise was pointing them towards. She did not even look to see if anyone else in the clinic needed her before darting in after them.

They were placing Daryl onto the bed and Beth grabbed his ankles to help swing his legs up onto the mattress. She barely noticed Denise pushing Morgan and Glenn back with one hand as she could not seem to tear her eyes away from Daryl's pale face. His mouth had fallen slightly open and his eyes did not move behind his closed lids. Beth could barely breath as she looked at him so when she saw movement from the corner of her eye she turned towards it immediately hoping that not looking at his face would help the oxygen find its way back into her lungs.

She had not been prepared for the movement to be Denise cutting Daryl's shirt from his body. Beth gasped in horror as she took in the sight of the entry wound the bullet had left in his stomach. Her fingers curled around Daryl's ankles as she shoved down her own panic and fear. He needed her to be present for this, she could deal with her own terror later. Right now Daryl was her only concern.

Denise pressed a towel to the wound before beckoning for Beth to take it. She was surprised to find her hands steady as she took over, watching as Denise began to prod at Daryl's stomach around the entry wound.

"His stomach is rigid. Something was damaged." the doctor's fingers ran over Daryl's abdomen expertly as a frown creased her forehead. "There's no exit wound. The bullet is still in there."

Beth sucked in a deep breath as she took in what the doctor was truly saying. Daryl may not have been bit but he was nowhere near in the clear just yet. She kept her eyes glued on his still face as she pressed the cloth to his side as the other women readied the room for surgery behind her.

XxX

Familiar voices drag him back to consciousness although it feels like it takes him a year to open his eyes. The sounds of people rushing around fill his ears as well as people calling out for medical equipment and tools he did not even want to begin to consider the uses of.

Daryl groaned as he twisted his head to the side forcing his eyes to stay open as he surveyed the small bedroom he was in. He caught sight of the familiar bright red hair of the doctor blurring past him before his eyes landed on as Carol whose mouth was pressed into a firm line as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. The sight of her familiar face calmed him marginally but she was not the person he was looking for. There was one person he needed to be beside him in that moment yet he did not see her in the small room.

"Beth?" his voice sounded more like a groan of pain than a question but it seemed everyone in the room finally heard him. He saw Denise give a nod to someone standing behind his shoulder but before he could even begin to process what that meant fingers were brushing his hair off his forehead.

Soft hands cupped his face and immediately some of the pain began to ebb. Her breath tickled his ear as Beth leaned down to whisper in her melodic voice, "I'm here Daryl. I'll be right here the whole time."

With that thought in mind Daryl did not even protest as she pressed the sickly sweet smelling cloth over his lips.

XxX

The following hours were a surreal blur to Beth. She barely remembered most of it but the sight of Denise bent over Daryl's stomach with a bloody pair of forceps clenched in her fist was seared into her brain. She had to press the rag over Daryl's mouth twice more before the surgery was completed. Each time she had to do so tears threatened to pool in her eyes but she managed to keep them at bay knowing that she had to be strong for Daryl. He needed her and she was not going to let him down. She spent the whole surgery bent close to his face and whispering words of encouragement into his ear. She couldn't remember anything she had said but she hadn't been able to stop talking, even if he couldn't actually hear her.

He had been fortunate in that the only thing the bullet had damaged was his appendix which it had ruptured upon entry. The surgery went on longer than it would have if all Denise had to remove was the bullet since she had to remove his appendix as well. Thankfully the bullet had not split into smaller fragments when it entered his body because if that had happened they would have likely torn through his intestines and although no one said anything Beth got the feeling that would have been a much harder thing for them to fix then draining out the damage from his appendix.

They were lucky that Carol knew Daryl's blood type because he had lost a great amount. They had sent James to look for anyone who was B positive blood type and within a few minutes Rosita was there and being hooked up to ivs that sent her blood pumping into Daryl's veins.

By the time Denise finally closed Daryl's abdomen back up hours had passed and the hand Beth had kept curled around Daryl's shoulder the whole time had a terrible cramp in it. She flexed it a few times as Carol passed Denise bandages to place around the sight of the incision. As the last piece of tape was placed on the gauze it felt like a palpable weight left the room as all four of their shoulders sagged in relief.

"Your friend should be okay." Denise said with a smile, patting Daryl's hand as she stretched her back wearily. Beth sighed in relief as she placed the bottle of chloroform and the sodden rag on the table before pushing her hair back off her face.

"I'll go tell the others." Carol said, a small smiling gracing her tired features as she passed Rosita a bandage to place over the small hole the needle had left in her arms.

Beth's ears pricked up at the word and she turned away from Daryl to watch as the two women headed for the door. "What others?" she asked softly, inching closer to Daryl as everyone made to leave.

Carol's smile grew as she looked over her shoulder at Beth. "They'll all be here by now. They'll want to know he's okay."

Left alone in the room with Daryl Beth barely even acknowledged that everyone else was in the clinic as she focused on what she thought was the more important part of Carol's words.

Daryl was going to be okay.

XxX

Whatever drug Beth had dosed him with had clung to him and forced him into a dark nightmare from which he thought that he would never awaken. His worst memories seemed to assault him one after the other in a never ending stream of terror.

He saw his father clutching his worn leather belt, Sophia stumbling out of the barn, Merle lumbering towards him with his eyes the yellow film of the dead, Andrea pulling back her shirt to reveal the bite mark on her neck. Beth shot in the head again and again.

Eventually the memories all seemed to blur and twist together. Sometimes Merle was the one holding the belt or Lori would be coming towards him with eyes gone flat and cold, her hands reaching towards him like claws. Beth would watch him with a twisted smile on the other side of a window and no matter how loud he screamed she never made any move to come any closer. He beat on the glass until his fists turned raw and bloody and yet it had no effect on either the glass or her.

XxX

"He's stable Beth. Why don't you go home and get some rest?" Denise's soft voice caused Beth to push off from where she had been leaning tensely against the wall as she watched the doctor check on Daryl's vitals and the sight of the incision.

She shook her head immediately, knowing full well that even if she were to leave the room her mind would stay there all night. The group had finally all went home after they had been told that Daryl could have no visitors until the following day. Beth had heard the sounds of everyone protesting even from behind the closed door. She understood that they were upset but since Daryl was unconscious anyway she was sure that they hadn't missed very much. Despite that she herself had yet to leave the room even though over an hour had passed since the surgery had ended.

"I'm gonna stay." Beth admitted causing Denise to look over at her in surprise. Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at her but then her eyes flickered back to Daryl and the crease between her brow smoothed out as a look of understanding crossed her face.

"Okay." the doctor wiped her hands on her blood stained shirt before giving Beth a knowing smile. "Check on him every hour alright? If there is any sign of fever or leakage around the incision sight you need to tell Neal immediately."

Beth repeated everything she was to look out for before exchanging good nights with the doctor. The moment the door shut behind her Beth dragged the chair out of the corner of the room to the side of the bed. She had just sat down in it when the door opened again and Carol came back in.

She walked to the end of the bed where she stood for a moment simply looking at Daryl in relief. After a moment of silence she spoke softly, her gaze now locked on Beth worriedly. "I'm going home now Beth."

Beth nodded to let her know she had heard her but she made no other acknowledgment as she pulled her feet up onto the chair, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them as if she could physically hold herself together as the stress of the day began to wear on her.

Carol let out a soft sigh and even without looking Beth could feel her eyes were still on her. "Are you planning on staying all night?"

Beth nodded again as she dug her fingers into the rough material of her jeans. She could feel some of the blood that had splashed and dried onto her clothing under her fingers. Carol said nothing but suddenly she was much closer to Beth and bending down to kiss Daryl lightly on the forehead.

"I'll see you two in the morning alright?" she whispered before she leaned down and cautiously placed a kiss on the crown of Beth's head. Her eyes drifted shut at the contact and for a moment she let Carol simply hold her as the tension and general fear of the day overwhelmed her.

"I'll send someone with clean clothes over." Carol said before she slipped out the door, shooting one last worried look at the pair as she did so.

Beth said nothing as she rested her chin on her knees, watching as Daryl's eyes shifted behind his lids as she quietly wondered what he was dreaming. She was not sure how long they sat there like that but at one point Daryl let out a whimper and before she even thought the action through Beth had moved to grip his hand tightly with her own.

XxX

His nightmares slowly began to warp into something more dreamlike and far less painful.

Daryl found himself standing back inside of the funeral home only now it was bright and full of sunlight as he walked down the wide hallway. The sound of laughter drew him into a room and he watched as Lori and Jacqui laugh at something he did not know the cause of. He backed away slowly before heading across the hall to the other door where upon opening it he found Dale and T-Dog staring intensely at a chess board while Andrea and Amy teased them both by threatening to make their moves for them.

Daryl felt a strange sense of confusion as he walked down the hallway, opening every door he came upon. When he saw the people inside he felt like there was something he was forgetting about all of them, something incredibly important, but he could not quiet place his finger on it.

As he opened the last door on the hallway he was surprised to find Hershel and his brother sitting across from each other at a small table, both clearly at ease in their conversation. Unlike all the other rooms that time when he opened the door their gaze turned to him and it was in that moment that he remembered what he had forgotten.

Everyone in this house was dead.

A sense of dread washed over him as before his very eyes the faces of the men before him began to twist and morph into something sinister. He went to shut the door but found that it wouldn't budge as both men stood up with a screech of their chairs on the hardwood. Daryl turned quickly only to realize that the hallway behind him was now packed as everyone from the rooms began to shamble out of them. Their smiles were gone and replaced by decaying flesh as they approached him. Pressing his back tight against the wall he scanned the hallway for a way out desperately. He was just about to give up when suddenly a small hand was clutching his. Daryl turned with wide eyes to see Beth standing beside him, her blue eyes wide and clear as she whispered furiously.

"I'm not leaving him."

Daryl's brow furrowed in confusion at her words but before he could say anything another voice came from down the hall. It looked like Amy was the one speaking but that couldn't be right as it was a man's voice spilling from her lips.

"I'm more than capable of taking care of my patients Greene."

More confusion filled him as the voice inside of Amy addressed Beth instead of him but Beth only shook her head before she whispered sternly.

"I don't care if he is your patient. He's _my_ friend and I am not leaving him."

And with that Beth tugged on his hand and turned to yank open the door he could have sworn wasn't there a second ago. The sound of people throwing themselves against the wood filled his ears even as he followed Beth up the small staircase in the dark. A surge of relief filed him as he realized he was no longer facing this horror alone.

XxX

Beth held onto her anger in the hopes that it would keep some of her exhaustion away. For the most part it worked and she sat huddled in the chair, Daryl's hand clutched tightly in her own, as she silently fumed at the audacity Neal had to demand for her to leave.

She had always known she was not very fond of the doctor, he lacked any sort of bedside manner whatsoever and now it was apparent that he lacked simply any form of manners. He had all but ordered her to leave Daryl, as if her need to stay with him was some kind of insult to his medical abilities. Well Beth didn't care what he thought about it, she was going to stay by Daryl's side all night and there was nothing Neal could do about it.

A soft knock on the door drew her attention from her thoughts and Beth stood in a rush fully prepared to yell at Neal again. She was not going anywhere and he was going to have to accept that. All but marching to the door to the bedroom she yanked it open with a glare that faltered as she took in her sister's wide eyes.

Beth's mouth dropped open in confusion but she did not say anything as she took a step to the side to let Maggie into the room. She walked a few steps to Daryl's bed where she stared down at him for a moment before reaching up to brush some of his overgrown hair off of his face. Beth couldn't help but wonder when the last time he had a haircut was.

"How's he doing?" Maggie's quiet voice drew Beth from her pondering and she looked back to her sister to see her watching her intensely. Beth shrugged, looking down at her hands as she began to pick at the dried blood on her fingernails.

"He's stable. It looks like he should make a full recovery."

"I brought you two some clothes." Maggie set the bundle Beth hadn't even noticed she was holding down on the chair Beth had just vacated. "Rick got Daryl's but I didn't think you'd want anyone going through your things so I just brought you some of my clothes."

Beth looked up at her then to see her sister shrug as she trailed off into silence. The silence stretched on as they simply watched each other wearily from across the small room. Beth felt a swell of gratitude for her sister's thoughtfulness but it was dimmed by her simple exhaustion of the events of the day.

"Are you doing okay?" Maggie finally asked softly as she reached up to tuck a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

Beth shifted her feet uncomfortably. She hadn't really thought about how she was doing after about everything that had happened, she wasn't what mattered after all. But still Daryl had been shot and a man had to have his arm amputated and she had to be present for both surgeries. Not only that, she had also remembered the flashes of two other people being amputated as well and had no one to talk to about them. It had definitely not been the type of day she had been expecting when she had woken up that morning but it seemed so selfish to focus on herself after what everyone else had gone through.

"I'm fine." she lied as she picked at the blood on her hands again. Truthfully Beth did not want to think about how she was feeling. If she did then she knew that her horror at the man's bite, her confusion at the memories she had seen and her mind-blinding terror at seeing Daryl come into the clinic covered in blood would simply consume her. She would fall apart and she did not know if she would be able to put herself back together enough to be of any use to Daryl.

"No you're not." Maggie's voice held an edge of pain and understanding as Beth looked back up at her in surprise. She could see how much this woman knew her, even if Beth herself didn't, as she looked at her with green eyes that Beth knew could see right through her lie. They fell into a standstill as they both waited stubbornly for the other to cave and either drop the subject or admit to their pain.

The silence dragged on as Beth felt the pain of the day picking at her, looking for any weak spot to get through. It finally began to make its way past her defenses and Beth found she could not get any words out as she finally let the general fear and confusion of the day take over her. A whimper escaped past her lips and a look of pain crossed Maggie's features but she stood her ground, clearly afraid of what would happen if she came any closer. In the end it was Beth who took the first step forward but she did not have far to go before she fell into her sister's waiting arms.

XxX

The dream finally relinquishes its hold on him and Daryl nearly moaned in relief as he felt the pull drawing him to consciousness. There was a weight resting on his arm and he finally got his eyes open enough to realize it was Beth using his arm as a pillow although he could see that her eyes were open.

She caught sight of him looking at her at the same time and she sat up with a small gasp before leaning closer to place a hand to his forehead.

"How do you feel?" she asked softly as Daryl smiled at the sight of her face.

"Like I've been shot." he admitted causing her to smile at him tiredly.

"You can join the club now." she whispered making his eyes drift to the small circular scar on her forehead where the bullet he had thought meant the end had gone through her. "We're thinking of getting matching jackets." Beth joked as she moved to lean away from him.

Daryl reached his left arm up slowly, groaning as the pain rolled through his side. Beth was just about to protest when he finally got his hand up high enough to cup her face. Her eyes widened in surprise and for a moment he simply let his hand rest where it was as his heart began to beat faster. He felt a twinge of relief that he was not plugged into a heart monitor because he knew it would be speeding up noticeably as Beth slowly sat on the edge of his bed, still leaning over him. Slowly Daryl's thumb stroked the scar the bullet had left her and Beth's eyes drifted closed at his touch.

"Pretty shitty club." he finally whispered causing Beth to laugh softly as her eyes fluttered open again. For a moment they simply stared at each other, Daryl's hand still cupping her face as she looked down at him.

"I was so worried." she finally admitted, her voice catching on the last word. "When you came in I thought-" Beth shook her head, cutting herself off but Daryl thought he knew what she was going to say. He had just come in from a walker attack covered in blood, it made more sense to think he'd been bit than shot at the sight of that. He felt a pang of guilt that he had caused her such worry even though he knew that it had not been his fault.

"I'm okay." he whispered, brushing away the lone tear that manged to squeeze itself out of Beth's eye as she looked down at him. "I'm not going anywhere Beth."

She smiled at him before reaching up to take his hand in hers, pressing her face closer to his palm for a moment as her eyes fluttered shut. Daryl could feel the pain medication he had been given start to pull on him again and so when Beth placed his hand back onto the bed he did not move to stop her.

Beth reached up to brush the hair off of his face as he let his eyes drift close. He knew that more nightmares were likely waiting for him on the other side but as long as Beth was beside him he thought he could face them.

"Will you stay?" he mumbled turning his head to look at her through eyes he could suddenly barely keep open.

"Of course." Beth said before she suddenly leaned closer and pressed a feather light kiss against his cheek. Daryl drew in a sharp breath at the feel of her lips on his skin and she was so close that her breath tickled his ear as she whispered. "I'm not gonna leave you."

The words sent a shiver down Daryl's spine as he remembered the last time she had said that to him and the months of pain that followed after it. Still he had not meant to say anything about it but maybe it was the drugs or maybe it was just her because instead of merely agreeing Daryl mumbled, "You've said that before."

He was just about to drift back to sleep when her next words drifted to his ears. "I know."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

He woke up to a dull aching pain on one side and the strangest sensation of weight on the other. Stifling a groan Daryl opened his eyes to see the top of the bandage on his right side peeking out from the blanket that covered him which reminded him of the cause of his pain. Turning his head to the left he saw that Beth was leaning against him again only this time her head was just barely resting against his stomach and her eyes were closed in slumber. Sleeping, her face was free of the perpetual crease that was almost always between her eyebrows these days. Her look of almost constant confusion was wiped off her features as she slept. She looked peaceful like that and Daryl would have gladly dealt with his pain for a few more minutes of watching her sleep.

But as if she sensed him waking up only seconds later Beth's eyes slowly blinked open and Daryl had to fight back his look of disappointment as she glanced up at him tiredly. Beth gasped as she realized she had fallen asleep and she stood quickly, leaning over to press her hand to Daryl's forehead urgently.

"How do you feel?" she asked, her voice groggy from sleep.

Daryl shrugged and winced as the motion sent a ripple of pain up his side. "Alright." he admitted. "Hurts a little."

Beth smiled down at him before she turned her attention to the actual wound. "Well you were shot. Plus Denise had to take out your appendix."

His ears perked up at that information as Beth turned away from his side, clearly satisfied with the state of his stitches. And here he'd thought the pain was normal for being shot in the gut. "Huh." he said placing his hand curiously over his stomach, an action he regretted instantaneously as the pain flared up again.

"It's okay." Beth said, looking over at him when he winced. "You don't actually need it."

He snorted at the breezy tone in her voice as if she told people they'd had their organs removed everyday. "Easy for you to say. You've still got yours."

The smallest of laughs escaped Beth's lips as she finished running all her check on his vitals. "Everything looks normal, or at least everything Denise told me to look out for does." A hint of worry still visibly clung to her but she looked less guilty about falling asleep now that she knew he was healing okay.

Daryl let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding at that news, watching as Beth slowly sat back down in her chair before looking up at him sheepishly.

"Don't tell anyone I was asleep alright? If the doctors find out they might not let me stay here again."

She looked so calm saying it, as if it was expected of her to continue to stay with him but Daryl had to clear a sudden lump out of his throat to get out his question. "You're planning on staying again tonight?"

"Well." Beth bit her lip and looked away from him and though Daryl could not be certain he thought he saw the faintest of blushes on her face. "If you don't mind."

"I don't." Daryl said quickly. He felt a sudden surge of guilt then that she was staying there because she thought she had to. That she somehow felt like she had to take care of him but not because she actually wanted to. "But you don't have to stay here. Not if you don't want to." he mumbled, finding it very hard to look at her as he offered her a way out.

"I know. But I do want to." Beth whispered. The last part of her sentence was all but lost to him as Daryl suddenly remembered hearing her say those same words right before he fall asleep the night before. Or at least he thought she had said them. He was just opening his mouth to ask her whether that had been real or a dream when there was a soft knock on the door.

XxX

She was not the slightest bit surprised when she opened the door and found, not one of the doctors or even another one of the aides, but Rick standing in the doorway with his daughter propped up in his arms.

His eyes met hers briefly but Beth stepped out of the way before he could say anything to her, allowing him to see Daryl himself. She turned back inside after him, a noise of protest escaping her as she realized Daryl was trying to sit up to greet Rick.

"You're hurt!" she admonished, her hands resting on her hips as she watched him reproachfully. Daryl at least had the good graces to look sheepish as he settled back on the pillows at her glare while Rick laughed.

"Glad to see you're in good hands." Rick said with an easy grin as he gripped Daryl's shoulder in what Beth imagined was his form of a hug with Daryl in his injured state.

"The best." Daryl returned, his eyes fixated on her face with enough heat that Beth blushed again. The heat of his gaze suddenly felt like to much for her, especially with other people in the room and she knew she needed to get out of there before it got any worse. Besides that she knew that the men might want a moment alone.

"I should go see if anyone else needs my help." Beth whispered before she slipped out the door. After shutting it behind her Beth let her head fall back against the wood as she thought about the brief memory she had gotten the night before.

It hadn't been much but she could still remember the strongest feeling of terror as she threw Daryl his crossbow down a dark hallway towards him. She could remember him waving her off and giving her instructions to flee and her own voice crying out in pure panic, "I'm not gonna leave you!" That was all of the memory she got but even with it ending where it did Beth knew that those words had ended up being a lie.

But now they wouldn't be.

XxX

After Beth left they fell into silence and Daryl knew it was not because neither of them had nothing to say, it was just that they'd said it all so many times before. How many times now had he and this man he saw as a brother nearly lost the other?

Finally Rick eased down into the chair Beth had recently vacated, Judith sitting happily in his lap. "I'm glad you're okay." Rick said, his eyes heavy with numerous griefs as they met Daryl's.

Daryl nodded, trying hard to keep his own emotion out of his voice as he responded. "Me too."

"Thought I knew what it was like to lose you." Rick muttered, staring down at his daughter's head as Daryl peered over at him. "After the prison." Rick shrugged before he finally looked up and met Daryl's eyes again, "Having Glenn come running to me, covered in your blood and saying you'd got shot." Rick shook his head as if he was trying to rid himself of the image. "That was worse."

As if he suddenly found the blanket covering him fascinating Daryl turned his gaze away, running his fingers over the frayed edge. He knew all to well what Rick meant of course, every time he thought Rick was gone or that he was about to watch Rick die the pain seemed to have increased tenfold. The night when Joe and his group had nearly killed them, in the moment Daryl should have been rejoicing because Beth had been right all along and other people were still alive and in front of him, that moment had been overshadowed with a terror Daryl had not felt since the day he had found the thing that used to be his brother.

"I'm okay." Daryl finally mumbled, looking back up at Rick who nodded with a smile.

"I know."

The door opened then, and both men let out sighs of relief as their heavy conversation drew to an end. Beth slipped inside the door shyly, shutting it behind her with a soft click.

"No one else is here but Neal and I'm not allowed to go near the medicine cabinet." Beth said apologetically. "Is the pain to much? Do you need me to get Neal or can you wait until Carol or Denise gets here?"

It was not just Beth's obvious distaste for the doctor but his own half remembered drug induced dream from the night before that had Daryl shaking his head. "I can wait." He'd dealt with pain before after all, what was a little more?

"Shouldn't be to long anyway." Rick said looking over his shoulder at Beth. "Carol will probably be over the second she wakes up."

Beth nodded before turning to leave and Daryl was filled with the overwhelming urge to ask her if she really had said 'I know' last night but Rick's presence stopped him. Before she could walk out the door, however, Judith started crying causing Beth to nearly spin on her heel as she turned back to look at the child Rick was now bouncing on his knee in an attempt to clam her down.

Stepping forward shyly Beth hovered just behind Rick's shoulder as she offered, "I could take her for a few minutes."

Rick looked up at her gratefully before holding up Judith to her. Beth took her without a word and Daryl wasn't surprised when Judith's cries dwindled to whimpers the moment she was in Beth's arms. A look of shock crossed Beth's face but then she merely smiled before heading to the door.

"We'll leave you two alone." she whispered before slipping out into the hallway.

Silence hung heavy in the air for a moment before Rick slouched forward in his chair. "It's times like that I can almost forget what happened."

Daryl nodded, he knew exactly how the other man felt.

XxX

Wanting to avoid Neal for as long as she could Beth took Judith out onto the porch where the early morning mist was beginning to burn off as the sun rose. The child was now happy as she nestled against Beth's shoulder, burying her little hands into her ponytail.

Casting a smile down at her Beth shifted her higher up onto her hip, wincing as Judith tugged a section of her hair painfully.

"Careful sweetie." she whispered as she carefully sat down on the porch step, dew seeping through her clothes at the contact. "You're going to cause quite a tangle."

Judith simply babbled out a happy laugh in response as Beth moved her to sit in her lap. "Hold on." she whispered before raising her hands up to her ponytail. Her fingers moved quickly through a task Beth had not remembered how to do until that moment but it took her only seconds before she was tying off the section of her hair with the spare tie on her wrist. Turning Judith back around so she was facing her Beth offered her the small braid she had just placed in her ponytail.

"Now you can't tangle it." Beth explained causing Judith's grin to widen. "Just try not to pull to hard."

The beaming smile on Judith's face was her only answer.

XxX

After Rick left Daryl's door seemed to become stuck on revolving, as soon as one person left another came in to take their place.

The next person to come in was Carol who gave him antibiotics and thankfully something for the pain that seemed to be only getting worse. She even snuck him a few slices of apple even though Daryl was fairly certain he was not supposed to eat solid food yet. She did a quick routine check of his vitals and she looked so concerned Daryl didn't have the heart to tell her Beth had just done so.

When she had finished she had poked him in the shoulder with a fake glare as she reprimanded, "Don't scare me like that again."

It became a very popular phrase for the day.

He could have sworn half the people in the damn town came to see him and he was fairly certain most of them didn't come out of any genuine affection for him. It was a small town at the end of the world, not a lot happened. As one of the few people seriously hurt after the attack yesterday Daryl was a novelty. He supposed it was easier to come see him than the man who'd lost his arm or the women who had yet to wake up after part of the wall hit her on the head.

As the day wore on he was quickly losing his patience and he began to feign sleep whenever a person who was not a part of his family came in. Daryl did speak to a few others, some of the other people who guarded the fence and a couple of the people who'd been at the attack with him yesterday. Even the girl who shot him came in, stuttering out an apology through her tears. A large part of Daryl had wanted to yell at her or at the very least admonish her harshly for being so careless but at that point Beth had walked into his room to check on him and suddenly most of Daryl's anger was gone. He had survived after all. He did make the girl promise not to carry a gun until she got some actual training for it although he did not tell her he forgave her for shooting him(mostly because he didn't). She left a little more dry eyed anyway and Beth had given him one of those beaming smiles that Daryl could tell meant she was proud of him for taking the high road.

The day wore on and Daryl began to actually fall asleep for chunks of it. He woke to find Rosita, Maggie and Tara about to head back out his door but he managed to call out a groggy wait before they shut themselves out. They were all smiles as they came back to stand around his bed and Daryl was grateful when none of them tried to hug him, although Maggie did squeeze his hand once.

"Thanks for the blood." he told Rosita who laughed softly.

"Of course." she waggled her finger at him reproachfully. "Try not to make a habit of it alright?"

The pain medication was wearing off and the pain in his side had reached an all new high as Daryl groaned. "Deal."

XxX

Maybe it was the constant flow of people coming in and out of the clinic to visit their loved ones who had been hurt the day before or maybe it was the fact that so many of them had sought her out as well but Beth still had hours before her shift over when she snuck outside just to breath.

She sank down wearily on the steps of the porch, her head falling into her hands as her near sleepless night caught up with her. Promising herself that she would go back inside in a minute Beth drew in deep breaths of fresh air, as always forgetting about the medical smell of the clinic until she was away from it. The sound of the door opening behind her caused her to raise her head guiltily. She was just about to stand when a familiar voice stopped her.

"Mind if I sit?"

Shading her eyes from the afternoon sun Beth nodded up at Glenn who sat next to her with a small smile. He didn't say anything for a moment and so she didn't either, not really sure of what she should say. Beth wondered briefly if Glenn knew that to her this is the first time they had ever spent anytime alone together. He was her brother in law and all she really knew about him was his name.

As Beth looked over at him she saw that he was playing with a pocket watch, running the chain through his fingers as he looked out at the town.

"You like to keep time or something?" she finally asked, desperate not so much to end the silence but to learn something else about the man beside her.

Glenn looked over at her with a look of surprise that quickly melted into remorse. He shook his head as his hands went still, the pocket watch laying in his upturned palm.

"Your dad gave it to me."

Beth paused as she let that sink in. This was the first thing she had ever seen of her father's, that she knew of at least. Suddenly she wanted very much to ask him the questions she had thought were to painful for her to talk about with her sister. Beth was all to well aware of how little she knew of the man sitting beside her but something told her that unlike Maggie he would be able to handle it if she asked him to tell her about her father. Still her voice was barely above a breath as she whispered, "What was he like?"

The sharp sound of Glenn's sudden intake of breath was the only sign he had heard her question. He stayed quiet for so long that Beth began to fear he was not going to answer her. She was just about to apologize and tell him he didn't have to say anything when he began to speak.

"Your father was a great man, probably one of the best I've ever known." Glenn shook his head, his fingers curling around the pocket watch as if by holding onto it tighter he could still cling to his memories of her father.

"He was like a father to me too, he was for most of us really. My family, I don't know what happened to them." another flash of pain crossed Glenn's features but he managed to fight that one down faster as he continued, still looking out at the road and not at Beth. "Probably never will. My mom, my sisters. They were up in Michigan in the beginning of all this. I was in Georgia. I'd been going to school there, not that I ever finished. Can't blame that one on the walkers though."

He let out a humorless self deprecating laugh as Beth wound her arms around her knees, watching him from the corner of her eye.

"After the turn, well I was just to scared to try and make it there by myself. To afraid of what I might find, or not find. I fell in with the group on the highway." he looked at her from the corner of his eye and Beth nodded immediately even though she had no idea who had been in their ragtag family for how long. Part of her told her that Daryl had likely been in the group at that point and if he had been then probably the Grimes as well. Other than that she had no idea who Glenn had joined up with in the early days at the end of the world.

"I trusted the people I was with, I even liked most of them but at first it kind of just felt like these were the people I was surviving with. It wasn't until your father gave me this watch that I truly felt like I had a family again." Glenn smiled a bit, finally turning his head to look at her.

"Everyone I was with suddenly went from being the people I trusted and survived with to being my family. All of them. Maggie. Hershel." Glenn smiled at her although Beth could see the sadness tugging at his eyes even as he nudged her shoulder with his own. "You."

She managed a smile for him as he looked back down at the watch in his hand, so many conflicting emotions crossing his face that Beth could not even begin to name them all.

"Your dad told me once that 'no man is good enough for your little girl until one is'. I've never felt like a better man then when Hershel was proud of me." Glenn's knuckles turned white around the watch as he looked back over at her again, his eyes intense on hers as he spoke. "He had that effect on all of us. He made us better people. He made us want to _be_ better people."

Beth smiled at the sudden surge of pride she felt for the father she didn't remember at his words but before she could say anything Glenn was thrusting his hand towards her, the watch suddenly dangling from the chain just above her hands.

"You should take the watch Beth."

She recoiled from him on instinct, staring at Glenn in shock. He continued quickly as if he could stave off the protests already forming on her lips. "It's been in your family for a long time. This watch is part of your history, your dad's history. You should take it for a little while."

Beth shook her head quickly as she leaned away and held up her hands as if that could ward off Glenn's insistence. "Its yours. I can't."

"I'm not giving it to you." Glenn said with a grin, as he reached for her hands and curled them around the watch even as she continued to protest, "Its just a loan. So you have something real of his to hold onto for as long as you need."

The watch was warm in her hands and she felt something loosen in her chest but still Beth shook her head. Glenn cut her off before she could say anything else. "It's what your father would want Beth."

XxX

The next time he woke up he was certain before he even opened his eyes that hours had passed. The pain medication was wearing off enough that he no longer felt drowsy but thankfully his side only felt like a dull ache and not the blinding pain of yesterday or even that morning. The light was out in the room and someone had taken care to shut the curtains leaving him in near total darkness as he slowly dragged himself out of slumber.

Daryl was surprised to find that he was alone, the first time he had been since arriving at the clinic. He used the time to consider the evening before with Beth, he had yet to have a chance to ask her whether she truly had said that she knew about the memory he had referred to and he could not quite decide how to broach the subject. He supposed he could just ask her but if it turned out he had just imagined it, well he didn't know if he was ready to deal with that just yet.

He had yet to come to a decision when the door to his room opened slowly and only the thought of causing himself more pain stopped him from sitting up. A small figure entered the room, her blonde hair illuminated by the lights in the hallway.

"Beth." he whispered causing her to gasp lightly as she shut the door behind her.

"I thought you were asleep." she admitted as she turned to flick the light switch on. Daryl blinked against the sudden light as Beth walked to his side, a tray balanced on her hands. "I brought you some dinner."

The smell of soup hit him and his stomach growled with hunger causing Beth to smile as she sat down on the bed beside him.

"You probably shouldn't sit up yet." she admitted as she balanced the tray on her lap. "You don't want to tear your stitches."

Daryl was about to protest when Beth lifted the spoon to his mouth.

"Here. I'll help you."

And as much as he wanted to say he could feed himself, take care of himself, he doesn't. Daryl doesn't say a word as Beth proceeded to feed him the entire bowl, at one point running her thumb over his chin to catch a lose drop of soup. By the time the bowl was empty the hunger in his stomach was gone but it had been replaced by a different kind of hunger altogether, one that he was trying desperately to ignore.

After setting the tray down on the table against the wall Beth sat down in the seat beside Daryl's bed toying with something in her hands. Daryl caught sight of a flash of silver before he recognized the watch Glenn always carried, the one Hershel had given to him all those months ago back at the farm.

"Can't believe he let you have that." Daryl admitted with a grunt. He knew how sentimental Glenn was over the watch, not that he could blame him. Beth looked up at him and shook her head.

"He just lent it to me." she whispered before staring back at the object in her hands. "It was my dad's."

He couldn't tell if the pain on her face was from holding the watch or from it being the only thing she had of her father's and it wasn't even really hers. "You might remember something about him Beth." Daryl whispered, for once willing to bring up the memories in hopes that it would let her have a little bit of faith in herself and her memory.

The strangest of looks crossed her face then and she opened her mouth to say something. Before she does though she just shook her head and removed her hand from his, toying with the watch in her hand.

"What's wrong?"Daryl whispered, not missing the look of pain in her eyes and knowing it was not just caused by the watch.

Beth shrugged, "I can tell you later. You're hurt."

Daryl rolled his eyes. "Just tell me now Beth." Suddenly his heart began to beat faster and he wondered if now was his chance, his moment to ask her if he had been dreaming or if she really had said 'I know.' last night.

Beth looked at him for a long time before drawing in a deep breath and whispering, "I remembered something else last night. About you."

His eyes shut as an intense surge of relief hit him. It had been real after all.

"It was dark and I was so scared. I yelled I wasn't going to leave you but then, I guess I did." Daryl opened his eyes in time to see Beth duck her head as if she was ashamed of what had happened.

He can barely stand to look at the pain on her face as he reassured her. "You didn't want to. They took you."

Beth bit her lip as she looked over at him, a flicker of doubt crossing her features before she continued. "I remembered some other things as well. When we had to amputate Chuck's arm." Beth trailed off into silence as Daryl winced. He had heard about the amputation of course but he hadn't known she had been present for it. He reached his hand out for her's again and she slipped her palm into his without a second thought.

"Tell me." he whispered. His happiness that she was remembering more things was nearly nonexistent since he could tell from the hunch of her shoulders that nothing she remembered was pleasant.

She didn't need another encouragement and she began speaking quickly. Daryl could tell she had been waiting to talk about this since it happened. "I saw a girl, around my age. The doctor who saved me after I was shot was cutting off her arm. She'd been bit."

Daryl shook his head sadly at that information, both for the girl and because he could not tell Beth anything about the memory.

Beth continued quickly, likely because she had already realized if the doctor from the hospital was in the memory Daryl wasn't going to know anything about it. "The other was an older man. His lower leg was missing." Beth trailed off into silence as Daryl drew a sharp breath. There was only one person that could be.

"Hershel." he whispered seeing her eyes widen as she recognized the name. "That was your dad Beth."

XxX

She couldn't stop threading the chain of the pocket watch through her fingers thinking about how she was holding something her father had once held. The father whose only memory she had was him in severe pain.

"Did he heal? After his leg, did he survive?" Beth whispered, drawing her legs up into the chair and wrapping her arms around them, the pocket watch digging into her palm from her tight grip.

"Yeah. He lived for a while after that. Never let it stop him either." Daryl whispered, and even without looking Beth knew his eyes were glued to her face. "He was tough. The toughest son of a bitch I ever met." Daryl continued causing a small laugh to escape past Beth's lips. Her eyes flickered over to him and he gave her the smallest of smiles. "Must be where you get it from."

Beth simply shook her head as she toyed with the watch in her hand. "I wish I could remember more about him." she admitted softly.

Daryl reached his hand out towards her cautiously and Beth shifted the watch into her other hand before reaching down and threading her fingers though his again. He didn't say anything to which Beth was grateful, for really what was there to say?

"Will you tell me more about that night?" she asked softly, breaking their silence. "The night that we got separated?" Beth wanted to talk about anything else right now other than her father and truthfully she was just curious. She had sounded so sincere in her memory about not leaving him so what had happened?

She heard Daryl draw in a sharp breath before responding, his voice thick with emotion as he muttered. "It'll give you a lot of questions." he admitted, although Beth could tell he was more worried about her than actually having to answer the questions.

Beth looked down at him with a small smile "Daryl, everything gives me questions."

XxX

"You know we were at a prison for a while." Daryl began unsure of how much he could tell her without overwhelming her with information. "We lost it and everybody got separated when we escaped." a flicker of confusion passed Beth's face but she just nodded for him to continue. "You and me got out together."

"Just us?" she asked softly, a strange look of understanding crossing her features as Daryl nodded.

"Just us." he confirmed. "We tried to find other people but we never could. I just wanted to sit down and stop but you never let me." her blue eyes were tight on his and Daryl swallowed hard as he finally made himself admit to her the truth that she had once known even without him saying it aloud. "If you hadn't been there." he shook his head. "I think I would've just given up. On everything."

The squeeze of his hand let him know Beth knew exactly what he meant by that.

"You brought me back. Kept me going, don't think I ever thanked you for that." Daryl admitted looking over at her. "So thank you."

Beth smiled at him but said nothing as she waited for him to continue. He had to take a deep breath as he remembered that night, the night that he had thought for so long was their last one together.

"The night you remembered we were holed up in this funeral home. Looking back it was probably a trap set up by those bastards in the hospital but I guess I'll never know." Daryl sighed as he thought about that night, trying to stop his memory before he got up from the table while wishing he truly never had.

"We'd been talking, eatin', when I heard noise out front. There'd been this dog earlier so I thought it was him. It was stupid. I was so damn stupid." he shook his head as all of the hatred he'd had for himself since that moment came flooding back to him with a force that nearly made him gasp. He turned his head away from Beth as the guilt settled like a ball in his stomach.

Beth squeezed his hand tightly. "Don't talk like that." she whispered forcefully. "You're not stupid."

"It was my fault Beth." Daryl continued fervently. Now that he had started to admit it out loud he found he could not stop. "I didn't look out the door, bunch of walkers got it." His hands curled in anger. "I'm the one who told you to wait on the road." Daryl met her eyes as he told her what she had to have been beginning to realize. "It's my fault you got taken Beth. Everything that happened to you, it was _my_ fault."

And it feels so good admitting it out loud, the thoughts and guilt that had been plaguing him since that night. The ball inside his stomach almost seems to shrink as he let some of the guilt out. How long had he been waiting to admit that to someone? To let someone else realize all the horrible things that had happened were all because he had been to damn stupid to look out the door before he opened it? Daryl had just wanted to see the dog again to bring it in and let Beth take care of it, to bring it back to life the way she did him. But it hadn't been the dog and his actions had simply set them on a course full of nothing but pain.

"You listen to me Daryl Dixon." Beth moved suddenly to sit beside him on the bed, leaning closer to him as if she physically needed him to understand what she was about to say. "It is not your fault. What happened to me is no one's fault except the people who took me."

Her blue eyes refused to waver as they held his and Daryl could not help but remember the last time she had stood up to him like this. He still remembered how shocked he'd been that the first person to truly stand up to him since the turn was tiny little Beth Greene. He had underestimated the amount of strength and fight she had in her and as she leaned over him in his hospital bed Daryl realized he had done that yet again.

Beth's eyes flash dangerously as she slipped her hand into his again and Daryl clung to her tightly as she continued."What happened to me, it happened. Ain't nothing we can do to change that. And it doesn't matter because I'm here now. I may not be the Beth you remember but I still survived. I'm still alive."

Daryl opened his mouth, what he was going to say he had no idea, but in the end it did not matter because Beth reached up with the hand he was not clutching and cupped his face with her palm as she whispered. "I made it Daryl."

She leaned forward then, her forehead resting lightly against his as Daryl slowly rose his right hand to her back, ignoring the pain it brought to his side. He wasn't sure if he believed her dismissal of his guilt, it still felt like everything that happened to her was his fault. He should have been more cautious and that was a fact. But with Beth leaning over him like she was, their foreheads pressed together and her every breath tickling his face, nothing else seemed to matter. He'd been dealing with his guilt for weeks he could shoulder it for a little while more.

Daryl let himself focus on the most important thing she had said as he moved his hand up to her hair, his eyes opening wide in surprise as his fingers caught hold of a small braid that he knew for a fact had not been in her ponytail before. He's certain that the words come out more like a prayer than a whisper as he repeats back to her, "You made it."


End file.
